


Doctor Who: A New Companion

by veecamaro3



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Doctor - Freeform, F/M, New Who, TARDIS - Freeform, The Doctor - Freeform, Travel, companion - Freeform, doctor who - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 52,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veecamaro3/pseuds/veecamaro3
Summary: The Doctor is in the market for a new companion. Who better than the young woman that sells tickets at Fisherman's Wharf? After he swoops in and saves the day, the Doctor invites Gen on the trip of a lifetime. Will she accept it?Hey that's what a summary is supposed to be! Every single fic I've written has undergone an extreme make-over. Sometimes I've scrapped the entire thing and started over (that's right, x-men, I'm looking at you). Doctor Who hasn't had the chance, yet. It needs a major facelift, but I can't figure out where to begin. I started it at a young age, it was one of my firsts, and my immaturity is easily discernible. It's probably the one story I'm most embarrassed to share, and the one I've been so careful to try to get 100% right. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome!P.S. The Tenth Doctor is my Doctor, and he's who Gen starts out with. Eleven next. The First Doctor will always have a special place in my heart, though, that patronizing old donkey. But I didn't skipped Nine! Never skip Nine. It's the Cardinal Rule.P.P.S. I highly recommend chapter 5 if the first 4 don't float your boat.





	1. Knight in Shining Chuck Taylors, Or Whatever

It’s never-ending tourist season in San Francisco, which is why I have a pretty steady job selling tickets for the Big Bus Tours down at Fisherman’s Wharf. Nothing to be proud of, but it pays the bills. 

On this particular day, the fabric of my uniform seems to absorb all of the heat baking the city in a record-high summer. I’ve lived here all my life and this is the first summer where temperatures have gotten even close to the 90's. Living next to the bay usually helps keep it cool.

I take a right on O’Farrell Street. Despite the relatively early hour there’s a fair amount of people on the streets. Like I said, never-ending tourist season. I hook my finger in the collar of my shirt and yank it to the side, letting some of the heat escape and hoping some of my agitation and anxiety goes with it. I ran out of Ativan this morning.

I walk the same half-mile to the start of the Powell-Hyde cable car line five days a week. That means I see the same wonders of downtown San Francisco every day. The Tenderloin District doesn’t have much to offer in terms of class and creativity compared to the rest of the city.

Point I’m trying to make is, when a blue 1960’s London police box shows up on the street in California, I’m definitely going to notice. Thing is, nobody else seems to.

The police box is tucked into a sort of alcove in the outside of a building, next to the entrance to an underground parking structure. The box is flushed with the blue concrete walls, but still, _someone_ should at least be pointing in question.

I stare at the box as I pass by. I sort of wince as a memory pushes to the front of my brain. A memory of seeing this box when I was younger, on a school field trip to Sacramento.

The class was gathered at the entrance of Fort Sutter, waiting for our tour guide. I stood off to the side, not really paying attention because I was always lost in my own world. My focus caught on a large blue something by the trees across the way. I shielded my eyes from the sun, squinting through the blinding light, to just make out the shape. A box, with a slanted roof and some sort of unlit lamp perched on the top.

Could it be the same one? The logical part of my brain says, no, of course not. How could something from nearly forty years ago, and from London no less, end up in California? In the oddest way I think to myself that I’ll stop by on my way home and look at it more closely if it’s still there, as if there was a possibility that it would be gone so soon. But it could be. I mean, it got here overnight and it doesn’t belong here. San Francisco has some historic sights, but a London police box isn’t part of the local color.

Aside from the box and the heat I have a relatively normal day. The one thing I actually like about my job is that the ticket booth is outdoors and faces the bay, so I can watch the boats and see Alcatraz Island while I stand aimlessly behind the ticket booth.

When four-thirty rolls around I find myself excited to clock out. Usually I’m just numb, going through the motions. Today I have a reason to get out of here, though. I want to go see that blue box. I bounce on the balls of my feet behind Nadia, the girl who still hasn’t figured out how to use the painfully simple machine to clock out.

“You seem like you’re in a hurry today.”

I stop bouncing and turn around. David, one of my coworkers, is in line behind me. I don’t say anything at first because I’m not entirely sure if he was speaking to me. No one has said anything to me here in two days. I don’t care to talk to anyone, so if they don’t talk first, that’s fine by me.

“Yeah,” I say.

David just nods. Nadia finally finishes her punch and walks away. I feed my card in the slot and hit the button.

The cable cars are packed, as they usually are at this time. I stay near the edge for the half-hour ride back to O’Farrell Street, ready to fly off the moment the car stops at the end of the line.

Much to my delight, the mysterious blue box is still tucked away into the wall of the parking garage. I stop a few feet away from it, next to a tree planted into the sidewalk, and watch it. It doesn’t seem dangerous.

I slowly creep up to it. The blue paint is faded and cracked and the wood is old. The bottom six panels of the front doors are wood, one of them bearing the standard notice of a free telephone and such, and the top two panels are frosted glass, glowing a dull yellow. Maybe something is inside.

I place my hand on a panel. The wood feels warm, and it seems to hum with life beneath my fingers. My heart races at the idea of opening it to see what’s behind the blue doors. I press hard, but it doesn’t budge. I remember the sign on the door, and see the words _PULL TO OPEN_ at the bottom. I chuckle softly, then glance around warily to see if anyone saw my mistake.

Regardless of which way I try to move the door, it’s locked. I run my hands to the edges, to make sure that it actually is a box and not just some cardboard joke, but it’s a genuine box. I feel the corners and the ridges of the panels on the other sides. Before I head home, I try one last thing. I open the white panel, revealing a very old telephone. I had hoped to see beyond the hole it created, but I just see a metal box that fits the phone when the door is closed. I sigh. With a heavy heart I continue my journey home.

My apartment is an ugly orange building on the corner of O’Farrell Street and Hyde Street. It wasn’t always orange. When my parents bought it, it was a sort of pale yellow. It stayed that color until after they died. The city painted it a few years ago. It’s funny. I own the home, which is thankfully paid off, but I have no say on the exterior décor.

I unlock the door and toss the keys in a bowl by the front door. My bag falls to the floor with a hard _thud_ while I stalk to the kitchen to hunt for dinner. I open the cabinets and refrigerator three or four times, as if opening and reopening them will make food appear. I should probably go to the grocery store sometime soon.

There’s questionable milk in the fridge, and I unearth a box of cereal from the cabinet. That’ll do. I make myself a bowl and settle in on my old couch in front of the TV. I finally renewed the cable about five months ago and I’ve been recording countless shows and movies. It’s a good thing I had no life before cable TV because I certainly don’t have one now.

Today, though, nothing on holds my attention, so I grab a book. The book doesn’t do a very good job either and I just end up falling asleep on the couch.

I rush to work the next morning. I barely notice that the blue box is still there on O’Farrell Street. In fact, the box is there the next three days, except for Wednesday morning. I’m late that day as well, but I know that when I run by the parking garage in the morning the blue box isn’t there, but after work it is. I don’t know how, but somehow it is.

The heat reaches its peak by midmorning on Thursday. I constantly wipe sweat from my forehead and the back of my neck and pull at my shirt to circulate air through it. It takes all of my energy to be patient and polite with the customers, something that usually comes naturally due to my constant state of numbness, so when a tall, slender man in a blue pinstripe suit and full length tan overcoat casually ambles up to my counter with his hands in his pants pockets, I have to bite back my inexplicable annoyance of his attire.

“Hello, how can I help you?” I say as pleasantly as I can.

“Hi, yeah, just one ticket for a bus tour tomorrow,” the man says in an English accent that takes my breath away.

“S-sure,” I say, and press a button on the computer touch-screen. I hope it was the right one because I haven’t taken my eyes off him. “That’ll be twenty-four dollars.”

“Hmm.”

The man pulls a wad of crumpled bills out of his pocket. Any annoyance I felt earlier vanished at the sound of his voice, and now I think he’s the first customer I’ve ever had that I actually _want_ to provide service to.

I let him struggle with the money only so I can take a moment to really look at him. Different aspects about him make him appear different ages. His suit, for one, is slightly classy, like a stylish junior lawyer in his late twenties, but then he wears cream colored Converse high tops like a teenager and one of those long British overcoats with the slit up the back. He’s got all sorts of age contradictions in his face as well. I guess he could seem in his late thirties at first glance, but he looks a little younger with his brows pulled down in frustration as he works through the money. His brown hair is gelled, but it’s messy and a few of the longer strands at the top hang over his eyes, as if it was styled earlier but he works his hands through it out of habit. But when I look into his brown eyes as he raises his head, he seems centuries old.

I lean forward over the counter. “Need some help?”

“Please,” he says, shoving the money in my hands. “I’m not quite sure how money works.”

I laugh. “You mean how American money works?”

“Right,” he says, flashing a breathtaking smile.

“You’re a long way from home,” I say casually as I pull a few bills from the pile. The man laughs and runs his hand through his hair, messing it up even more.

“Yes, quite a long ways away.”

The ticket prints and slides out of the slot. I hand it to the man with the rest of the money he left on the counter.

“Have a good day, sir.”

He leans towards me. “You too, Genevieve Courtois.” With a devilish smile, he tips an invisible hat before strolling away with his hands in his pockets, whistling a carefree tune.

The next customer steps up to the booth but I haven’t quite recovered enough from my encounter with the strange man to start the next transaction. I grip my stomach, which twists itself in uncomfortable knots, then gingerly touch the breast pocket on the left side of my shirt, where two small holes are sewn in for pinning of a nametag.

A nametag that I forgot to put on this morning.

A little after noon my manager sends me on lunch. My stomach is still nervously upset from earlier and I don’t feel like eating, but I figure I should. I buy a bread roll from the Bistro and take it to a bench at the end of the Wharf. I eat slowly, trying not to upset my stomach by thinking about earlier but failing miserably because the only thing that keeps going through my head is how that strange man knew my name. My full name, at that, and a name I’ve always hated. He was so odd that I’m sure I would have remembered him if I’d seen him before. But I haven’t.

And it’s not like he could have just mixed up my name by accident. I may look like Plain Jane with flat dark brown hair and pale skin that won’t tan no matter how much sun I get and brown eyes that I try to convince myself are hazel just to feel good about myself but who am I kidding, but you can’t confuse my unmistakable French name with Ashley Smith or something pathetic like that. There’s no way it was a coincidence. I’ll just have to call this one utterly unexplainable and move on.

When my lunch is just about over I stand up and wipe the crumbs off my pants, turn around and stretch my legs a little before walking back. I’m not really looking at anyone or anything in particular, my mind just kind of wanders, but then my eyes focus on someone staring at me from across the Wharf and a cold, painful shiver runs down my spine.

The strange man from earlier leans casually against a lamppost with his hands in his pockets, facing my direction. Yes, there’s a small part of me that says he could literally just be facing my direction but I know he’s not. I know he’s facing _me_.

Goosebumps break out all over my skin, the little hairs on my arms brush against my sleeves. My brain tells me to move but my feet are rooted to the spot. Then, he smiles. And I think that’s what gets my feet going.

I fight to hold down the bread as I half run-half walk back to work. I honestly don’t think I would have even noticed the guy if it weren’t for the way he was dressed. Then there was the feeling I got, seeing him standing there, watching me...it almost felt predatory. I shake my head. Maybe cable was a bad idea. I’ve been watching too many crime shows.

I manage to survive the rest of the day without a panic attack and make it back to my apartment safely. Just as a precaution, I lock the two extra deadbolts on the door that I never use, and the latch that goes up into the wall. It seems silly, but it also makes me feel a little better.

Then this fleeting thought crosses my mind: the blue box wasn’t there.

On Saturday night I get an intense craving for Chinese food. Chinatown is the next city over. Nothing beats some of the small restaurants they have there. I grab my bag and my keys and head off into the night.

I take the bus to Chinatown but end up walking home after to help my bloated stomach with digestion. This is why I usually stay away from Chinese food – I tend to overeat.

It’s dark tonight because there’s no moon but it’s not that late. Barely nine o’ clock. But I guess bad things don’t have a schedule. I turn on Stockton Street and this chill of fear that seems to be carried by the wind washes over me. I keep my pace but become more alert, listening for things, straining my eyes in the dark. I feel like I’m being followed.

For a quick moment the man from the Wharf flashes in the front of my mind and I want to stop in my tracks and call him out on his stupid games, because they _aren’t_ funny. But it’s a good thing I keep going because I would have looked very stupid to the three guys that just turned out of the alley ahead of me.

I groan and lean my head back. I’m not in the mood to deal with thugs right now. My knife is in my bag and I’m not afraid to defend myself, I’ve just got this major food baby in my stomach and I’m slowly slipping into a food coma.

I keep my head down as the distance between me and the guys gets smaller. Maybe they don’t want trouble. Maybe I’ll get to just go home and veg on the couch in front of the TV like every Saturday night.

Of course, I’m not that lucky. Who am I kidding.

At least this mugging seems like it will go quicker. No formalities. No teasing, flirting, pleading or begging before one of them grabs me into a chokehold and the other one slices the strap of my bag and takes it from me.

“Okay, you’ve got my bag,” I say. “Can you let me go now? My show starts in fifteen minutes and I really don’t want to miss it.”

Two of the guys chuckle, likely more to fill the awkward silence than commend me on my witticism. Their decisions between movements are strained, oddly longer than any experienced thug would take. Finally, there’s a low click and a quick swish and something cold and sharp presses against my cheek.

“Don’t talk,” orders the guy with the chokehold on me. “Or I’ll slip this knife in your mouth and cut out your tongue.”

I look at the others standing in front of me and assume that the guy I’ve got my back against looks the same. Young, probably doing this as some sort of initiation. They don’t have a lot of confidence or experience. That could work to my advantage or that could make them dangerous because there’s no telling where they will draw the line.

But I give it a go anyway and stick out my tongue.

With a roar of anger my captor pushes me against the wall, with his knee against the lower half of my body and his forearm at my neck. “You asked for it,” he snarls, prying open my mouth with the hand holding the knife.

I wiggle my head until he loses his grip and say in a strained voice, “How are you going to hold my mouth open _and_ cut out my tongue with one hand?”

He looks down at the knife and then at his other arm. I know he’s about to grab my head with both his hands, so the moment he releases my neck I duck out of the way. He loses the hold with his knee and I make a run for it.

“Chris! Kevin! Get her!” the guy yells.

I don’t make it very far. Chris and Kevin slam me against the wall about ten feet away. Mr. Chokehold straightens up and collects himself, knife in hand. I was just messing with these guys before but now I’ve dug myself into a hole that I’m pretty sure I’m not getting out of. The guy takes a menacing step forward, and maybe it would have been followed by twelve more, but a high-powered gush of water hits him square in the back and he falls flat on his face. The water shuts off.

Chris and Kevin exchange glances. They don’t dare let me go, but they want to investigate. They each have a hold on my arms as they pull me away from the wall. I think, _bad idea guys_ , just as two jet streams knock them over one by one, spraying me with water each time.

All three guys roll in puddles of water on the floor, moaning in pain. I squint down the street, trying to see past the glare of the streetlamps at what could have shot the water. The only thing I could think of that has such high pressure is a fire hose, but there aren’t any fire trucks on the street. Not that a fireman would’ve used such tactics in the first place.

Then, much to my surprise, a tall, slender man in a blue pinstripe suit and red Converse emerges from the shadows, twirling a small silver device in his right hand. He lops over to where the guys lay rolling, clutching their stomach or side. He tuts at them.

“Look at you,” he says, shaking his head. “Some muggers you are.”

I’m in too much shock to be, well, shocked that he’s here. The strange man from the Wharf that knows my name and watches me from a distance and now shoots water from fire hydrants at muggers.

“You all did your primaries, right?” the man asks, circling the thugs. “I hope you would have at least gotten _that_ far before going into a life of crime.” He examines the ground as he walks, shaking his head and nodding in different places.

“They teach electricity conduction at an early age,” the man goes on, talking faster out of apparent habit. “I’m sure you understand how it works. Electrical conduction is the movement of electrically charged particles through a transmission medium, usually some sort of metal." He holds up the thin, silver device, about six inches long, with a blue half-sphere at one end. “I can simulate that scenario here.” He waves it at me. “Sonic screwdriver.”

“What?” I say.

“Sonic screwdriver,” he says again.

“Okay,” I say, letting my voice trail off.

The man goes back to educating the muggers. I don’t know why. They probably aren’t listening, and they seem to be recovering. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be the ones rolling on the ground in pain.

“Well, when you have a flow of electricity, a nice human body, and water, you get a little something called electric shock,” the man says happily. He puts his hands on my shoulders and walks me backwards until the ring of water meets dry asphalt.

“Now you stay here, Genevieve Courtois,” he says.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Don’t you worry,” he says cheerily, then spins on his heel with a flourish.

“Hey, stop!” I say, and take a step forward.

He turns and points the silver device at me. “Don’t you move unless you want to end up a crispy little tender.”

“So, what, you want those three idiots to end up as crispy tenders?” I say. “Because I’ll count four if you walk out there.”

The man raises a foot and wiggles it. “Rubber soles,” he says, smirking. He turns around as the guys get to their feet. They’re pissed.

“Hello, mates,” the man tells them with a wide grin. “Back to our science lesson then, shall we?”

“Who the hell are you?” Chris asks.

“Well, I’m the–”

Mr. Chokehold punches him in the nose. The man retreats a few steps and shakes off the pain.

“Nice right hook,” he comments. “But look, it’s getting late, so I’ll have to cut the lesson short. Electricity plus body over water equals shock.” The man points the device at the ground. The sphere at the end glows a bright blue as it emits a high-pitched whine and suddenly the thug’s bodies convulse and they fall to the floor.

“Oh, crap!” I shout. I didn’t think he was actually going to do anything. “Did you just kill them?”

“Of course not, I just stunned them, knocked them out,” he says. “Weren’t you listening?”

“What the hell was all that electricity stuff then?” I hiss at him. “The water and the stunning and the little blue thing–”

“Sonic screwdriver,” he corrects me.

“Whatever,” I growl. “What the hell?”

“I saved you,” he says simply, with a casual shrug. “It doesn’t last forever, though. They’re going to wake up soon, so we’d better go. Come on.” He reaches out to me. I instinctively take a step back.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The man tilts his head to the side. He looks at me like he wants to ask why, like he’s not used to people rejecting his invitations. I take the brief moment of silence to run in the opposite direction, but he catches up with me and pulls me back.

“Look, thanks for the help, but I just want to go home,” I say, shrugging off his grip. I crouch down to retrieve my bag from the floor. Just as my hand makes contact with the strap the nearest guy grabs my wrist. I pull back with a yelp, but his grip is strong and I fall on my backside. The man is there in a heartbeat. He stuns the guy, then lifts me to my feet.

“Do you want help _now?”_ the man asks.

“Yes,” I say in a small voice.

He takes my hand and we run. I listen for the muggers as we go; I can hear them blundering on behind us.

“They recovered quickly,” the man comments breathlessly, and slightly ecstatically. “If we had immediately taken off like I anticipated, we wouldn’t be running for our lives!”

“Shut up and run!” I snap, and he responds with a bark of laughter.

We turn down Sacramento Street and take a hard left down a dark alley. Fear grips at my heart as the man makes a beeline for the blue police box I saw all week on O’Farrell Street.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper.

“Yep,” he says happily.

He pushes open the door and guides me inside with his arm around my shoulders. It’s dark and a tight fit. He peers through a crack in the door. I count the seconds. He snaps the door shut.

“I think we’re okay now.”

“Then why did you close the door?” I ask.

He’s quiet for a moment, and the silence makes my heart race. All of those absurd scenarios from the crime shows encumber me and I think, how stupid was I to follow some man into a freaking box, and now this is how I’ll die.

“I want to show you something,” he says. “I liked your cheeky attitude back there, about not wanting to miss the telly and all, so I figured you were worthy.”

“Of...?”

He turns me around. A faint, yellowish light creeps up the walls of a vast, sort of rounded room with paneled walls inlaid with hexagonal shapes giving off a golden glow, and a frosted dome at the top. Then a cyan light flickers to life, illuminating a giant console at the very center of the room, raised on grates covering jumbles of wire. Four coral shaped pillars support the ceiling. In the dimness, the entire room gives off the aura of a mechanical ocean.

I walk up the grated slope, faintly aware of the smile on my face. “Are we inside the box?” I ask.

“Yep,” the man says.

“And it’s just a box.”

“Well, I’d say it’s a little more than 'just a box',” he says, nodding to the enormous room.

I roll my eyes. “I mean, it’s not connected to anything? I could go outside right now and make a full circle around a regular police box?”

“Yes.” The man strolls up to the center console with his hands in his pockets and leans against one of the panels yielding an array of complicated buttons and levers and odd objects.

I glance back at the doors, but I don’t move.

“You’re not going to check.” A statement, not a question. A small smile pulls at the edges of his lips.

“Maybe later,” I say casually. I slowly walk deeper into the room, trailing my fingers along the metal railing. I shrug off the feeling that I’m walking into the lion’s den.

“You’re not surprised, either.” This time it’s a clear assertion.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Look at this place. Other people I’ve shown have cried out in disbelief, ran running in the other direction, at least denied its possibility before accepting it. ‘It’s bigger on the inside’ is a common observation. You just...smiled.”

“I just...I feel like I know it already, you know? I saw the box all week. I had some sort of gut instinct telling me that it was alive somehow, as impossible as that sounds.” I take in the room again, look at everything, and my eyes come to rest on the man at the console. The expression on his face, almost like a bit of swelling pride, lasts half a moment before he chuckles lightly.

“It’s called a TARDIS.”

“A what?”

“Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” he says proudly.

“Time...and space...” I mutter. “Like...like a spaceship?”

He nods. “Keep on, you’ve only got the half of it.”

“What, there’s more?” I take a couple of steps back as the realization settles in. I don’t necessarily have to believe him, but if he meant what I think he meant, then...

“Time,” I say again. “Time and space. Space travel. Time travel.” I shrug and grip my chest. “Sure, sure. Just standing in a spaceship. In a time machine, actually.”

“And that’s where I lose the ones brave enough to endure the TARDIS for at least sixty seconds.”

“Thanks for your help, with the water and the muggers and science lesson and the screwdriver that doesn’t look like a screwdriver and all, but I think I’m just going to go.” I turn and high-tail it down the ramp.

“You know, hundreds of people walked by the TARDIS last week, but you were the only person to actually see it.”

I stop at the door with my palm against it, prepared to push it open. I dig at the crevices in the wood with my nail to bide the time. A small part of me screams that this is all just a dream, that I really did go into that Chinese food coma and I’m passed out at home, and any moment I’ll wake up and it will be Sunday morning.

But really, time and space travel? Blue police boxes that are bigger on the inside? Spaceships? Is he some kind of alien?

“Thanks again, but I just want to go home,” I say.

“Wait.” The man jogs across the grates and down the ramp and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Won’t you just come on one trip? We don’t have to go far.”

The eager expression on his face is hard to deny. His eyes plead, expectant, like a child waiting for his older sibling to come play. I get a strong impression that he’s very lonely.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

He lowers his hand. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Can I at least take you home?”

“Sure,” I say, thinking it’s the least I could let him do.

I turn back to the door but he runs up to the console to twist knobs and press buttons on three different panels, and wind up a lever.

“I live on Earth, you know,” I say.

He looks up at me and grins. “You’re cheeky, I like it.”

“Seriously, though, I live a couple blocks from here.”

“I know, but I like to show off,” he says, and slams a button.

What I can only assume are engines start a rhythmic, metallic whirring and the entire room jerks hard to the right. I fall against the railing and watch the man stagger to the side, laughing. He regains his footing and runs to the panel with a flat TV monitor above it.

“Ladies and gentleman, we are now on our final approach into Hyde Street.” He flips a switch and the entire room jolts and the engine whirring slowly fades. He leaps off the grates and flies down the ramp, swings the door open. “Milady,” he says, gesturing outside with a wide sweep of his arm.

I take a few cautious steps forward and stifle a scream. This man, this strange, strange man, has landed inside my living room.

He gets out and examines the box. “Well, not bad parking for such a tight spot.”

“Please leave,” I say.

“What?” The man’s smile fades from his face.

“Leave,” I say again, a little more forcefully.

“All right...” He disappears inside the TARDIS, but then pokes his head back out. He says in a low, sad voice, “I’d hoped you’d enjoy this next part, but now I’m starting to see I was wrong. Have a good night, Genevieve Courtois.”

The door closes and in a moment the engines whir again. Now, standing on the outside of the box, I see the form fading to the rhythmic whir, becoming a little more transparent with each pulse of the engine. In a few seconds the TARDIS has completely disappeared and I can finally breathe.


	2. Take THAT, Neil Armstrong!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned in my bio that I use the scripts of the movies/shows that I put my female character into as guides. This is where it begins for Doctor Who. No, it's not my own creation when I do this, but...It's how I've written my fics my entire life. I took the story that was already there, immersed myself into it, and branched out.

Nearly seven months has passed since that immensely peculiar night in mid-July. I think about that man and the blue box less and less, and it will only be a matter of time until I forget about him completely.

Yesterday I brought myself to the St. Francis Memorial Hospital emergency room. Every so often my period cramps get so unbelievably unbearable that over-the-counter pain medications won’t work and sitting at home curled up in a ball with a heating pad crying out the pain is just too much to endure. The agony usually only lasts a little more than twenty-four hours, though. So now I get to watch a _Friends_ marathon and ride a morphine high all night.

Around five in the morning a nurse wakes me up and takes out my IV. They’ve stopped the medication and are keeping me for observation for a few hours before release. I drift off to sleep again once she leaves.

My condition isn’t serious so the ER didn’t put me in a private room. My bed is one of six in a large area separated by curtains. The morning commotion rouses me from slumber. Annoyed, I open one eye and survey the area.

Four beds are occupied and none of the curtains are pulled forward for privacy. A few nurses circulate the bright, sunlight-filled room. I wish I had the bed by the window. I’d pull down the shades in a heartbeat.

A doctor and a group of medical students crowd around one of the patient’s beds. I sit up in my own bed, bring my knees to my chest, and wrap my arms around them. I want to go home. I watch as the doctor and his group of trainees float over to the next patient.

“They look so funny, don’t they?” someone beside me says, and my heart does a backflip the same time my stomach drops.

I turn my head slowly. Sitting in the bed next to me, wearing striped flannel pajamas instead of a hospital gown, is the strange English man with the time traveling spaceship. He’s got his hands tucked behind his head and his feet casually crossed under the sheet.

He nods to the students. “Overachievers, studying so hard, trying to memorize everything in all of those medical books. They never get the _big_ picture. They always miss what’s right in front of them.” The man grins at me.

“Wh–what are you doing here?” I manage to ask in a small voice.

“What do you mean ‘what am I doing here’?” he says. “This is a hospital, an emergency room. I’m sick. I’ve got an emergency, of course!”

“You’ve got way too much energy to be sick.”

Before the man can respond, the group of medical students and the doctor arrive at his bed. Now that the conversation broke, the fear can properly settle in. My flight response is working on overdrive right now. I kick off the sheets and gather up my clothes, but I can’t help but hear what’s going on in the next bed. Somehow this man knows me. Shouldn’t I know about him?

“Now then, Mr. Smith, a very good morning to you,” the doctor says. “How are you doing today?”

“Mr. Smith?” I scoff. The man winks at me. Oh, crap. Had I said that out loud?

“Aw, not so bad, but still a bit, you know, _blah_ ,” Mr. Smith says with a shrug.

The doctor turns to address his students. “John Smith. Admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Jones, why don’t you see what you can find? Amaze me.”

A young dark-skinned woman steps forward and places the end of her stethoscope on Mr. Smith’s chest. He grins up at her impishly as she cocks her head to the side. I watch her move her stethoscope farther to the left, then after a pause, drag it across to the right. Maybe Mr. Smith was right. These students study so hard they miss the little things.

“I weep for further generations,” the doctor complains in a bored tone. “Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?”

“Um, I don’t know,” she says. “Stomach cramps?”

“That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you failed basic techniques by not first consulting with the patient’s chart.” The doctor unhooks the metal chart from the edge of the bed and receives a large electric shock, large enough to be visibly blue. He gives a small yelp and drops the chart on the floor.

“That happened to me this morning!” Jones says.

“The same thing happened to me on the door handle,” another student says.

“And me, on the elevator,” another says.

“That’s only to be expected.” The doctor pats his lab coat smooth after bending over to pick up the chart. “There’s a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by...anyone?”

“Benjamin Franklin,” Mr. Smith says.

“Correct!” the doctor says happily.

“My mate, Ben,” Smith says broodingly, as if he were calling up a memory. “That was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked...”

The doctor’s delight vanishes. “Quite...”

“...and then I got electrocuted,” Mr. Smith finishes, biting his lip.

“Moving on,” the doctor says. I hear him add quietly to the students as they walk away, “I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric will do...”

I still have my clothes in my arms when I walk around my bed and over to John Smith. He smiles at me, but I can’t return it.

“Are you stalking me?” I ask.

“Nice to see you again, too,” Mr. Smith says. “How have you been?”

I lean in close to him, my face inches from his, and grip the back of his pillow. “Tell me what you’re doing here, in this hospital, in the bed next to mine,” I order, trying to enunciate each word and appear somewhat threatening.

He just smiles and nods to the window. “Interesting weather we’re having.”

I glare at him for a moment before following his gaze. No more than ten minutes ago, startlingly bright sunlight flooded the room. Now, it’s pitch black outside and raining.

“What the hell?” The rain looks funny. It still runs in streams along the windowpanes, but the rain is going _up_.

A loud rumbling fills the entire hospital, catching everyone’s attention before going quiet. My eyes lock with Mr. Smith’s just as the hospital trembles and shakes in what feels like an incredibly large earthquake. People scream and yell in fright, loose carts roll around, medical supplies are strewn across the room. I can’t keep my balance and I fall to the floor. I manage to crawl back to my bed to hold on to something stationary until the shaking stops.

Mr. Smith draws his curtains closed. His pajamas drop to the floor and I see him pull on his pants. I close the curtains around my own bed and get dressed as well. The morphine has completely worn off, allowing the pains in my stomach to return as I bend over and yank on my jeans. I try to shake off the pain as I put on a t-shirt and shove my arms into a green jacket.

There’s a lot of commotion coming from the hallway. People running, a lot of crying, even a couple people still screaming. I don’t really understand what the fuss is about. I know it was a huge earthquake, but unless the building collapsed it shouldn’t cause that much distress.

Until I hear one of the patients in the room say that we’re on the moon.

I whip the curtains aside. “What?” I say loudly.

The patients and a couple of nurses crowd around the window. I push my way to the glass and peer out. We’re on the moon, alright. The vast, white surface is spread out before us like a dirty blanket, and just across the horizon, about the size of an orange, is Earth.

If I hadn’t seen the TARDIS, a blue police box that was bigger on the inside, or teleported, or seen a weird little screwdriver that could electrocute people, I would have never believed that an entire hospital could be transported from the Earth to the moon. And I definitely wouldn’t be excited about it.

“It’s real,” I say. “It’s really real.” I instinctively reach forward for the latch on the window, some subliminal desire driving me to do so. One of the nurses, who is sobs hysterically, grabs my arm.

“Don’t!” she cries. “We’ll lose all the air!”

“Oh, come on,” I say. “They aren’t exactly air tight. Do you think the hospital was built for space travel? If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened already.” I shrug the nurse’s hand off and add, more to myself, “But it didn’t. How come?”

The metal circles of bed curtains scrape against the pole and Mr. Smith emerges, straightening the lapels of a brown pinstripe suit, then adjusts a dark brown tie he has over a royal blue collared shirt.

“Very good point!” he announces loudly. “Brilliant, in fact. Now, the question is, how are we still breathing?”

“We can’t be!” the hysterical nurse says.

“Obviously we are so don’t waste my time,” Mr. Smith says, and I stifle a laugh. He gestures to me. “Changed our tune, have we?”

I fold my arms across my chest. “We’re on the moon.”

“Eh,” he says, shrugging. “Any of you lot know if there’s a balcony on this floor? A veranda? Anything?”

“By the patient’s lounge,” one of the calmer nurses offers.

“Fancy going out?” Mr. Smith asks me.

“Okay,” I say, and I don’t know why.

“We might die,” he says tauntingly, wiggling his eyebrows.

“We might not,” I point out.

“Good! C’mon, then,” he says, offering me his arm. I step forward and take it. Where has all my good sense gone? It’s like my ability to make healthy decisions and avoid Mr. Smith was left on Earth.

Mr. Smith and I fight our way through the crowded hallways. It seems like all of the patients that can walk left their beds in an effort to escape the view of the moon, as if not seeing it would make it disappear. Doctors and nurses and any kind of staff tend to the patients, giving them oxygen, trying to calm them. What a training day for those medical students.

We reach the empty patient’s lounge. At the balcony doors, Mr. Smith pushes them open dramatically. I half expected us to get sucked out into the atmosphere, but there isn’t even air filtration. The air is just...still. But it’s there.

“We’ve got air. How does that work?” I ask.

“Just be glad it does,” Mr. Smith says dauntingly.

I nod a couple of times, rest my hip against the ledge, gaze out into the vast chasm of space before me.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He steps forward. “Sure?”

I smile. “Yeah.”

“Want to go back in?”

“No way,” I say. “I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same...it’s beautiful.”

“You think so?” he asks.

I nod vehemently. “How many people want to go the moon? And here we are!” I laugh, but it sounds a little frenetic.

He puts his hands in his pockets and looks up. “Standing in the Earthlight.”

I look out at the view. A view I’m sure he’s seen before, and one I’m sure I’ll never see again. “It looks so different from here,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, when you’re standing on Earth and looking up at the sky and the moon, yeah, it looks big and all because you know space is big. But up here, staring down at Earth...space looks even bigger.” I look over at him. When he rests his elbows on the ledge we’re almost at the same eye level. My voice comes out softer when I ask, “Why is that?”

“Well, the Earth has the sun and the moon. The light and the dark,” he says, just as softly. He stares at me while he talks and it makes me nervous, but only because he’s not being overly charismatic. “And it’s always night up here on the moon. The dark will always look bigger, I suppose. Trick of the mind.”

“Hmm.” I muster up enough energy to break our little spell. “What do you think happened?”

“What do _you_ think?” he counters.

I shrug. “You’re the expert.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Extra-terrestrial,” I say simply, and I won’t offer anything else until he’s given me a possibility.

“I guess it would seem logical for humans to think that extra-terrestrial beings did this after everything that’s happened these past few years,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you watch the news?” he asks.

“Not really,” I admit.

“Talk to other people?”

“Not...really.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, couple years back there were a few alien attacks in London. Spaceship flew into Big Ben, we had Cybermen attacks, a big battle at Canary Wharf with the Daleks. Seriously, you haven’t heard anything? Some of it went worldwide.”

I shake my head.

“Well, I know you Americans are thick, but I didn’t think you were _that_ thick.”

“Shut up!"

He laughs. “Sorry. But really, turn on the telly once in a while.”

“What are Daleks? Cybermen?”

He clenches his teeth and hangs his head. The muscles of his jaw work as he grinds his teeth. “Daleks are an alien race from the planet Skaro, and the simplest way to describe them is a metal cage of anger and hatred. They were built for destruction and dominance.”

“You’ve dealt when them personally, haven’t you?” I ask.

“Long story,” he mutters.

“And Cybermen?”

“Cybermen are just cyborgs with the brains of humans.”

I gasp. “What?”

“Yeah, it was a terrible time for humans. It started on a parallel version of Earth, actually, so when they came to your Earth they had the brains of the parallel versions of the people they were killing. Sort of paradoxical, but what can you do?”

“What can you do,” I concede in a low voice.

He ignores my comment. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear anything about the Cybermen-Dalek attack. They were after world domination. Cybermen were deployed all over Earth.”

I shrug. “Maybe I didn’t want to know.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He gives me a strange look before turning his head away.

We stand there in silence for a while, watching the Earth, a small glowing orb against a giant black canopy. I get the sudden urge to go downstairs, walk outside and feel the ground, experience zero gravity, but I know I can’t.

“So, Mr. Smith, if we can travel to the moon, we can travel back, right? There’s got to be a way.”

“It’s not Smith,” he says. “That’s not my real name.”

“Ah,” I say with a grin. “I figured as much. It’s too plain for a man like you. Who are you, then?”

“I’m the Doctor.”

“The Doctor,” I repeat dubiously. “Doctor who?”

“Just...the Doctor,” he says.

“What, people call you ‘the Doctor’?” I say, trying not to laugh.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, whatever you say.”

The Doctor picks out a pebble from one of the planters on the balcony. “Time to see what we’re dealing with,” he says, and throws it straight out. The pebble sends ripples off an invisible shield and bounces back at us.

“There must be some sort of force field keeping the air in,” he says.

“If that’s like a bubble sealing us in, that means this is the only air we’ve got,” I say. “What happens when it runs out?”

The Doctor is quiet. “How many people do you think are in this hospital?”

“I don’t know, a thousand?” I guess.

“A thousand people. Suffocating,” he says quietly.

I shake my head in confusion. “Why would anyone do that? What does anyone in the universe have against us?”

A low rumbling, like a deep growl, resonates from somewhere overhead. “Heads up! Ask them yourself.” The Doctor points out into the empty space to the left, where three huge, gray cylindrical spaceships appear. They fly to the front of the hospital and land neatly on the moon in a triangle. The Doctor and I wait in silence for its passengers to emerge.

The lower cabins of the ships depressurize in loud hisses and large, heavy doors fall forward onto the moon’s surface, releasing long streams of black shapes in a single file line. They march forward into the hospital.

“Are those... _aliens?”_ I whisper.

“Judoon,” the Doctor replies. “Let’s go.”

The Doctor practically drags me back through the hospital to the main lobby. We hunker down behind some potted plants on the mezzanine level to watch these Judoon creatures from higher ground.

The Judoon have faces resembling a rhinoceros, but they walk on two legs and have two arms. As they enter the hospital through the main entrance, their black helmets retract into their black space suits, revealing their ugly, wrinkly horned faces. They immediately get to work, but why they’re doing what they’re doing I can’t figure out.

The Judoon go up to each person in the hospital and shine a bright blue light in their face with a tool that reminds me of the Doctor’s little screwdriver, and then after the device beeps happily, the Judoon mark the back of the person’s hand with a large “X” and declare them human.

“Oh, look down there, they’ve got a little shop,” the Doctor says, peeking around a fern. “I like a little shop.”

“Forget the gift shop,” I hiss, pulling him back by his collar. “What are Judoon?”

“Galactic police. Well, police for hire. More like interplanetary thugs.” The Doctor chuckles.

“And they brought us to the moon?”

“Neutral territory,” the Doctor says. “According to galactic law, they’ve got no jurisdiction over the Earth, so they isolated us. That rain? Lightning? That was them, using an H2O scoop.”

“‘Galactic law’? Where’d you get that from? If they’re police, are we under arrest? Are we trespassing on the moon or something?”

“No, but I like that. Good thinking.” The Doctor furrows his brows. “No. It’s more simple. They’re making a catalogue. It means they’re after something non-human, which is very bad news for me.”

“Why?” I ask.

The Doctor doesn’t say anything; I assume he hasn’t heard me. With my focus on the Judoon, I lean over to him and asking again, “Why?” We finally make eye contact, and he just gives me this look. “Oh, you’re kidding me.”

The Doctor raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say, forgoing any notion that the Doctor is anything but human. “And stop looking at me like that.”

“Come on, then,” the Doctor says. He leads me away from the mezzanine as a Judoon orders in a loud voice, “Troop five, floor one. Troop six, floor two. Identify humans and find the transgressor. Find it.”

Is the Doctor the transgressor? Could he be alien, too? Now I think, how can he possibly _not_ be human? He’s really good-looking in a completely human way. The only thing non-human about him is the whole TARDIS thing.

But then I remember how that one medical student struggled to find his heartbeat. She checked three places: the normal area, farther left, and farther right. The Doctor had winked at her, too. So what was the deal? Did he have no heartbeat? One heartbeat that was off? More than one heartbeat? Was the Doctor flirting and she was just really bad at finding the heart?

The Doctor and I turn down a hallway where a group of Judoon crowd around some patients. He grabs my hand and we take off at a run in the other direction.

“Where are we going?” I ask, panting from the jog.

“I’ve got to get to a computer,” he says. He ducks into the next door without giving me any notice, making me trip over my feet in an effort to stop running and turn around at the same time. “In here!” he calls.

“Yeah, I got that,” I grumble, closing the office door behind me.

The Doctor, now wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses, sits at the desk, scanning the computer with his little device. It pulses blue to match the buzzing as he drags it around the monitor. I hear footsteps out in the hall and press my ear to the door.

“They’ve reached the third floor,” I tell him, and he just grunts. I roll my eyes and walk over to the desk. “I still don’t think that looks like a screwdriver.”

“What?” he says, waving the thing in my face. “How can you not think that looks like a screwdriver?”

“Have you seen a screwdriver lately?” I yank it out of his hand and examine it closer. I only get a quick look at it before he snatches it back. “Seriously, though, who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, Ooh, this could be a little more sonic?”

“What, you’ve never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?” He goes back to scanning the computer.

I scoff. “What else have you got? A laser spanner?”

“I did, but it was stolen by Emily Pankhurst, cheeky woman,” he grumbles. The Doctor suddenly strikes the monitor and then picks it up and shakes it. “Oh, this computer! The Judoon must have locked it down.” He slams the monitor back on the desk and taps his lip. “Judoon platoon upon the moon,” he mutters.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

He abruptly stands up, sending his chair shooting back. He paces a two foot area. “’Cause I was just traveling past, I swear, I was just wandering. I wasn’t looking for trouble, honestly, I wasn’t. I left you alone like you asked. Took a few trips ‘round the galaxy. But somehow I always end up here, you know? Then I noticed these plasma coils around the hospital, and that lightning, that’s plasma coils, been building up for two days now, so I checked in, thought something was going on inside, it turns out the plasma coils were the Judoon up above.”

The Doctor stops suddenly and looks at me. I stand there, wide eyed. Pretty sure my mouth is open as well.

“What?”

“I didn’t think you were going to stop for a breath,” I say. “But hold on, if the Judoon were planning this, what are they looking for?”

“Something that looks human, but isn’t,” he says.

“Like you, apparently.”

“Like me, but not me,” the Doctor points out.

“If they’re looking for something, shouldn’t they know what they’re looking for? Don’t they have a picture or something?”

“Might be a shape-changer,” the Doctor says.

“Um, I guess?” I say edgily. “Whatever it is, why can’t you just leave the Judoon to find it?”

The Doctor sighs and pulls his chair up. He falls heavily into it. “If they declare the hospital guilty of harboring a fugitive, they’ll sentence it to execution.”

“All of us?”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor says. He grabs the computer tower from under the desk and puts it on the tabletop for some sonic scanning. “If I can find this thing first, though...Oh!” He hits the tower with an open palm. “Just that they’re thick! Judoon are thick! They are completely thick!”

“I think you’ve got some anger issues there, buddy,” I say, propping myself up on the edge of the table. The Doctor rests his elbow on the armrest and rubs the bridge of his nose under the glasses with his forefinger and thumb.

“No. They wiped the records. Oh, that’s clever.”

“What are we looking for?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says, dropping his hand. “Any patient admitted in the past week with unusual symptoms. Maybe there’s a back-up.”

“Just keep working,” I say. “One of the doctors in the ER should know something. I’ll go ask around.”

“Be careful,” the Doctor warns me.

I open the office door slowly and poke my head out. The hallway seems clear enough in both directions. I go back the way the Doctor and I came because I saw a staircase on the way, and the ER is on the first floor and an elevator is certainly out of the question.

On the first floor I question a couple nurses about any new patients, but they’re all too distraught to think straight. A little ways down one nurse manages to say that a Dr. Stoker was doing rounds on patients that were admitted most recently, and I figured that’s a start.

How has my life come to this? Yesterday I was a nobody, a typical girl with a mediocre minimum wage job suffering from menstrual cramps, and now I’m in a hospital on the moon running from alien police while searching for an alien fugitive with another alien?

I shake my head to clear it from unnecessary thoughts and ask the nurse where I can find Dr. Stoker. She says she hasn’t seen him for a while, so try his office.

Dr. Stoker’s office is on the first floor as well, but on the opposite side of the hospital. I take off at a run, dodging staff and patient’s feet that stick out from where they sit along the walls of the hallway. When I reach the doctor’s office, I knock on the door and enter without waiting for an answer.

“Um, Dr. Stoker?” I say, looking around.

The office looks empty, but it doesn’t feel right. An odd smell wafts through the room as two tall figures in leather suits rise from behind the desk. They only look menacing because I can’t see their faces under the limo tint on the closed shields of their black helmets. An old lady in a nightgown, who I recognize as one of the patients from the ER room this morning, stands as well, drinking straw in hand. Small droplets of blood drip from the end of it.

I look down and see a pair of motionless feet sticking out from behind the desk. I look back up at the three...creatures, give a nervous laugh, then book it. I hear the old lady yell an order before I’m out of earshot, though.

“Kill her!”

Walking the streets of San Francisco every day is definitely good for the heart, but it didn’t prepare me for this much running. I’m out of breath quickly and sharp pains shoot through my chest. I will my feet to go on, though, because I know I can’t stop. All I think is, _I’ve got to find the Doctor, I’ve got to find the Doctor_. I also wait for that adrenaline kick I always hear about, the one you get when you’re faced with death or something and you can do anything, like run for miles or lift a car.

I go up a flight of stairs and burst through the door before checking to see if the hallway was clear – rookie mistake. Thankfully I end up running headlong into the Doctor.

“Hello, there,” he says, staggering backward and steadying himself as I grab onto his arms like a vise for support. “I’ve restored the back-up.”

“Fan- _tastic_ ,” I wheeze. “I found _her_.”

“You what?” he says. He looks up and his eyes widen. “Run!”

“Wha–” I turn and see one of the black figures from the office at the end of the hall. The Doctor takes my hand and we go into the stairwell. The Judoon are coming from the floors below so the Doctor leads me up and we dodge out of a doorway on the fourth floor.

It seems like no matter how fast we run we can’t escape the black figure. The Doctor leads me through hallways, skidding around corners, this time guiding me before he takes sharp turns through doorways. He manages to weave us through enough doors and halls that for a moment we’ve got a slight lead on the creature. The Doctor turns down one last hallway and opens a door labeled “Radiology”. When we’re inside, he closes the door and points his sonic screwdriver at the handle. It pulses blue with a low hum.

“What does that do?” I ask.

“Locks it,” he says.

“Can’t you just turn the lock?”

The Doctor’s face turns a shade of red as he purses his lips. “Don’t you – why – ugh. Forget it. I don’t have time to explain things to you. Come over here.” The Doctor grabs my arm and gives me a hard shove behind the control panel. I stumble over my feet and turn to glare at him.

“When I say ‘now’, press the button,” he says, then runs over to the x-ray unit in the room, sonic screwdriver in hand.

I look at the control panel in front of me. There’s two separate panels, side by side, and way too many buttons on it.

“I don’t know which one!” I say.

“Find out!” he shouts.

There’s an Operator’s Manual behind the computer monitor. I take it out and flip through pages, but we’ve got mere seconds before that black creature breaks through the door. As it is, it’s pounding on it right now. I look down at the panels again, trying to recall any medical shows I might have seen.

“I never saw any of this on _Grey’s Anatomy!”_ I shout.

The Doctor grabs the handles of the x-ray tube and aims it at the door just as the creature breaks it down.

“Now!” the Doctor yells. I frantically scan the panels and settle on a tiny button in the far corner with a radiation symbol so faded from use it’s barely visible. I press it and wait.

A stream of green light and a high-pitched whine emits from the x-ray machine and strikes the creature in the chest, making its skeleton visible in flashes like in the cartoons. It falls to the ground and writhes for a moment before becoming still.

“What did you do?” I ask the Doctor as I come out from behind the controls.

“Increased the radiation by five thousand percent. Killed him dead.”

“You were in the room!” I exclaim, battling the urge to call him an idiot. “You could have been killed, too!”

“Nah, it’s only radiation,” the Doctor says with a casual shrug.

“’It’s only radiation’,” I mock.

The Doctor glares at me. “We used to play with Roentgen bricks in the nursery. I’ve absorbed it all. All I need to do is expel it.” He flashes a wide grin and hops in place.

“What are you doing?”

“If I concentrate I can shake the radiation out of my body and into one spot.” The Doctor leans to one side during his hops. “Ah, it’s in my left shoe. Here we go, here we go, easy does it...” He stops hopping on his right foot and shakes his left. “Out! Out, out, out, out, out.” He wrinkles his nose. “Out, out, ah, ah–” He hops again, still shaking his foot. “It’s hot!” he shouts, and he looks a bit surprised.

“Don’t look at me, Roentgen, I can’t help you,” I say.

“Ah, hold on.” The Doctor stops moving. I watch him, completely intrigued at this point, as he bends halfway to remove his left shoe and toss it in the biohazard bin. “Done!” he says, grinning.

“You’re completely mad,” I say with a laugh.

“Hey, listen to you,” he says, the grin still on his face. “Hang around me a bit longer and maybe you’ll pick up the accent.”

“What- _evah_ ,” I say, purposely using a terribly fake English accent, and the Doctor chuckles. I look at his feet. “Ew, gross, don’t you wear socks?”

The Doctor looks down and wiggles the toes on his left foot. “I look daft with one shoe, don’t I?”

Of course, I don’t think it’s crazy (why would I at this point) to see the Doctor go and take off his right shoe and toss it in the bin as well.

“Barefoot on the moon!” he says cheerfully.

I just smile and shake my head, then I walk over to the dead creature lying on the floor. I kick it with the tip of my boot.

“So what is this thing?” I ask. “And where’s it from? Tatooine?”

“It’s just a Slab,” the Doctor says idly, completely missing my _Star Wars_ reference. “They’re called ‘Slabs’. Basic slave drones. Solid leather, all the way through. Someone has got one hell of a fetish.”

“It came with that old woman, one of the patients in the ER...” My voice trails off as I watch the Doctor walk back to the x-ray machine. He takes something from the smoking unit and holds it gingerly in his hands.

“My sonic screwdriver,” he says woefully.

“So the Slab was working for her. Like a servant, I guess,” I say.

The Doctor shows me a melted piece of silver metal. “My sonic screwdriver!” he cries.

“Look, I’m sorry about your screwdriver, but the lady had a straw, with blood on it. It was like she was some sort of a vampire–”

He steps closer, looking down at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, and nearly yells, “I loved my sonic screwdriver!”

So I yell back, “Doctor!” to get his attention.

“Sorry,” he says, and casually tosses the sonic screwdriver over his shoulder as if it were nothing. Then he smiles. “You called me ‘Doctor’.”

I push him away while trying to hide my red face and say, “That old lady is the alien. She was drinking Dr. Stoker’s blood.”

“Hmm.” The Doctor scratches his chin.

“What?” I ask.

“Well I’m thinking two things,” he says. “First, ‘doctor’ just doesn’t sound the same when you said it like that. Second, it’s a funny time to take a snack. You’d think she’d be hiding. Unless...” The Doctor twirls around and walks away, his fingers templed under his chin. He spins back around. “No. Yes! That’s it! Wait a minute.” He stops and narrows his eyes. “Yes! Shape-changer. Internal shape-changer. She wasn’t drinking blood, she was assimilating it!”

“Assimilate?” I repeat. “Like, absorb?”

“Sort of. If she can assimilate Dr. Stoker’s blood, mimic the morphology, she can register as human. We’ve got to find her and show the Judoon. Come on!” He dashes out of the radiology room. I hop over the Slab and follow the Doctor.

“What if she’s already registered as human?” I ask.

“One thing at a time,” the Doctor says. “Let’s find her first.”

Down on the next floor the Doctor suddenly pulls me behind a medical cart. We crouch down and hold our breaths as the other Slab walks past, completely unaware of us. And we aren’t even in that great of a hiding spot.

“That’s the thing about Slabs,” the Doctor whispers. “They always travel in pairs. Not so focused when they’re alone.”

“What about you?” I ask quietly.

“What about me what?” he says.

“Haven’t you got back-up? You must have a partner or something.”

“Nope, just me.” The Doctor stands up and offers me his hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet.

We turn around and find ourselves face-to-face with a Judoon. He immediately shines his blue probe in the Doctor’s face. It doesn’t make the happy beep, either. More like a miniaturized air horn.

“Non-human,” the Judoon states in a deep, gravelly voice.

“Oh, my God,” I say loudly.

“And again!” the Doctor says, reaching for my hand, and off we go, running for our lives, this time with the Judoon on our tails.

The Doctor leads us back to the stairs. This stairwell is new; we’ve found a side of the hospital that we haven’t ran through yet. When the Doctor opens the door to the hallway we find a corridor filled with people falling to the ground, crawling, staggering around, all of them gasping for breath.

The Doctor looks around. “They’ve done this floor. Come on. The Judoon are logical and just a little bit thick. They won’t go back to check a floor they’ve checked already. If we’re lucky.” He tugs on my hand but I slip out of his grasp and go to a nurse holding an oxygen mask to a patient’s face.

“How much oxygen is there?” I ask her.

“Not enough for all of these people,” she says. Her eyes are red and puffy and her cheeks are wet. She must have just stopped crying. “We’re going to run out.” I look back at the Doctor to see if he heard.

“How are you feeling? Are you alright?” he asks.

“I’m running on adrenaline,” I say with a laugh as I realize that the rush I had been waiting for finally did kick in.

“Welcome to my world,” the Doctor says.

“What about the Judoon?”

“Ah, great big lung reserves. It won’t slow them down. Where’s Dr. Stoker’s office?”

“This way,” I say.

I lead the way this time. The old lady isn’t inside the office anymore. All we find is the skeletal remains of Dr. Stoker’s body. The Doctor crouches down to examine it.

“Drained him dry. Every last drop. I was right. Plasmavore.”

“What was she doing on Earth?” I ask.

“Hiding. On the run. Like Ronald Biggs in _Rio de Janeiro_ ,” the Doctor says. This time, his reference goes over _my_ head. He mumbles to himself again. “What’s she doing now? She’s still not safe. The Judoon could execute us all.” He looks up at me. “Come on.”

“One of these times you’re going to have to tell me where we’re going before we go there,” I say as we leave the office.

“Think, think, think,” the Doctor mutters as we walk, a precious relief from running. “If I was a plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do?” He stops and looks at a sign behind me. I turn and see, in large, bold letters, the word “MRI” and an arrow pointing to a secondary imaging department.

“Ah, she’s as clever as me.” The Doctor winks. “Almost.”

Judoon voices echo from down the hall: “Find the non-human. Execute.” From the sound of it, it looks like they’re headed right for us.

The Doctor places his hands on my shoulders and looks intently into my eyes. “Stay here. I need time. You’re going to have to hold them up.”

A knot of fear twists in my stomach. The only reason why I’ve felt relatively safe during this horrific day is because the Doctor has been with me. He can’t leave.

“Gen?” he says, giving me a little shake.

“How do I hold them up?” I ask weakly.

The Doctor sighs and looks at me apologetically. “Gen, forgive me for this. It’s to save a thousand lives. It...means nothing.”

“What–?”

The Doctor slides one hand from my shoulder to the back of my neck and leans down to kiss me. It’s not just a peck, either. His lips press against mine for a few long moments before he pulls away and runs down the hall leading to the MRI department, leaving me breathless.

Tenderly, I touch my lips and think, _That was nothing?_ Then I think, _What the hell was that for?_

The Judoon enter the hallway, declaring, “Find the non-human. Execute.” I walk to the center of the hall and face the Judoon.

“Now, listen,” I say, struggling to keep my voice steady. “I know who you’re looking for. She’s a woman. I – I don’t know her name, but she–”

A Judoon raises his probe and shines the blue light in my face. I squint, partially blinded. “Human. With non-human traits suspected. Non-human element confirmed. Authorize full scan.” The Judoon looks at me closer. “What are you? What are you?”

“I’m – I’m human,” I say. “Do the scan again.”

The Judoon takes a step back and runs the probe from my head to my feet. It makes a series of short beeps. The Judoon takes my hand and marks the back of it with a large black “X”. “Confirmed: Human. Traces of facial contact with non-human.”

The other Judoon murmur amongst themselves. I laugh nervously.

“Oh, you know how couples are,” I say awkwardly. “Can’t keep our hands off each other.”

“Continue the search,” the Judoon orders its officers.

Before the Judoon leave, they turn their heads at the sound of a loud crash down the hall leading to MRI. The group of Judoon take off to investigate and I follow. They reach the door to the scanner room. I shove my way forward in time to hear the old lady say, “Now see what you’ve done. This poor man just died of fright.”

Lying on the floor, still as stone, devoid of all color, is the Doctor.

“No!” I scream.

“Scan him!” the Judoon orders. His counterpart runs a probe along the Doctor’s body and it emits three quick beeps. “Confirmation: Deceased.”

“No, no he can’t be.” I run forward and land heavily on the floor next to the Doctor. I reach forward and touch his cheek with a shaky hand. He’s already cold.

“Stop. Case closed,” the Judoon states.

“But it was her!” I yell, pointing at the old lady. “She did it! She murdered him!”

“The Judoon have no authority over human crime.”

“But she’s not human!” I shout impatiently.

“Oh, but I am,” the old lady says sweetly. She raises her hand. “I’ve been catalogued.”

“But she’s not,” I say quietly. I take the Doctor’s hand, entwine my fingers in his cold ones and say again, “But she’s not. She assimilated...” I laugh softly, thinking of the Doctor’s silly word.

My head shoots up. “Wait a minute. You drank his blood. The Doctor’s blood.” I jump to my feet and grab a probe out of the nearest Judoon’s hand.

“Oh, all right,” the old lady says with a chuckle. “Scan all you like.”

I walk up to her with the most smug look I can muster and aim the probe at her face. The glorious sound of a miniature air horn fills the room. I announce at the same time the Judoon does: “Non-human.”

“What?” the old lady says exasperatedly.

“Confirm analysis,” a Judoon orders.

“Oh, but it’s a mistake, surely,” she says shakily, this time with a little fear in her voice. “I’m human. I’m as human as they come.”

“He gave his life so they’d find you,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Confirmed: Plasmavore,” the Judoon says. “I charge you with the crime of murdering the princess of Patrival Regency Nine.” Two Judoon step forward and take the old lady by the arms.

“She deserved it!” she spits. “Those pink cheeks and those blond curls and that simpering voice. She was begging for the bite of a plasmavore!”

“Do you confess?” the Judoon asks.

“Confess? I’m proud of it! Slab, stop them!” the old lady shouts.

The remaining Slab appears from behind the MRI machine wielding an oddly shaped gun. He shoots a beam of energy at a Judoon, who returns fire. The Judoon is unscathed, but the Slab disintegrates.

“Verdict: Guilty. Sentence: Execution,” the Judoon states robotically.

A warning sign above the scanner flashes, lighting up the words “Magnetic Overload”. The MRI machine gradually whirs louder and the accompanying warning alarms drown out most of the sound in the room.

“Enjoy your victory, Judoon, because you’re going to burn with me! Burn in hell!” the old lady screams at the top of her lungs as the Judoon disintegrate her.

“Case closed,” the Judoon says.

“What did she mean ‘burn with me’,” I ask the Judoon. “I don’t think the scanner should be doing that. She’s done something to it.”

The Judoon waves its probe at the MRI machine. “Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse.”

“Well, do something! Stop it!” I yell.

“Our jurisdiction has ended. Judoon will evacuate.”

“You can’t just leave it! What’s it going to do?”

“All units withdraw,” the Judoon orders. It leaves the MRI room, followed by its officers.

I sink to my knees. For the first time in a long time I start to cry. A few months ago I thought I was going to die in a police box. Turns out I’m going to die on the moon. Who’d have thought?

The alarms are really annoying me.

I crawl on all fours over to the Doctor. I feel weak, lightheaded. I just want to lie down next to him and wait to die.

“Stupid machine,” I grumble, glaring at the scanner. Why do the alarms have to be so loud? I’ve never been good with technology. Never really had a reason to be. Don’t know why that’s relevant right now. I guess the last thoughts I’ll have before I die will be about my skills in technology.

But those damn alarms.

It’s like my alarm clock. Maybe this is all just a dream, my alarm is going off now.

My body is overcome with a fresh wave of energy. A dream. This could all be a dream. If I could just turn off the alarms I could wake up in my apartment and go to my stupid job and see the same old Wharf again. Man, do I miss that Wharf.

I stagger to my feet and inch my way over to the back of the MRI machine. Tucked away is an emergency off switch and a wall plug. I flip the switch and yank out the plug and the room goes quiet.

But I don’t wake up. I’m still in the MRI room. Still in the hospital. Still on the moon.

Still with the dead Doctor.

I crumple to the floor, no longer able to support my weight, and slowly crawl back over to the Doctor. I know he died of blood loss but something is telling me to do CPR. It sounds so ridiculous, but it works on TV, and I’m on the flipping moon.

Right away I know I don’t have the energy to push the Doctor’s ribcage deep enough to make any impact on his heart. I still do it, though, because what other options do I have? After five pumps I tilt back his head and breathe into his mouth. When I go back to push on his chest again, I think about that one medical student and the stethoscope. Now that I know the Doctor isn’t human, could it really be that hard to believe that he’s got two hearts?

I give it a go. Pump five on the far left, two breaths, five on the right, two breaths. I keep this up for what seems like an eternity. With each breath I give the Doctor I lose a little more of my life. I can feel it slowly leaving my body.

There isn’t enough energy left in me to continue. I fall to the side, breathless, and reach out for the Doctor’s hand. The last thing I remember is seeing the Doctor cough and gasp for air, but it must have just been my imagination, my oxygen-deprived brain letting me see what I want to see as I slip into unconsciousness.

The journey to the other side must be a bumpy one, because I’m vaguely aware of getting jolted back and forth and slipping in and out of consciousness.

Then I hear someone whisper, “It’s raining, Gen. It’s raining on the moon.” Great, am I destined to spend the rest of eternity on the moon?

But I didn’t die. I wake up in the crowded hospital lobby. Someone strapped an oxygen mask to my face. I take it off and toss it aside.

“The Doctor,” I gasp, sitting up too fast and making my head spin. I wait for the white dots to subside before I venture out of the hospital. I’ve got to find the Doctor.

Outside of the hospital is no better than inside. I dodge every reporter and get to clearer streets, keeping my eyes peeled for signs of the Doctor or the TARDIS on my way home. I lose hope the closer I get to my apartment. Why would he stay? He has no reason to. He found what he was looking for. Besides, the last time we met I had sent him off. No reason for him to think I’d want him to stay this time.

I happen to look down the alley next to my apartment building as I pass. About halfway down, hidden in the shadows, is the TARDIS, identifiable only by the illuminated “Public Call Police Box” and the frosted glass panes. Casually leaning back against the door is the Doctor.

“I went to the moon today,” I say with a grin.

The Doctor looks up at the sky. “A bit more peaceful than down here.”

“You never even told me who you are.”

“The Doctor,” he says simply.

“But what sort of... _species?”_ It feels funny to say the word. “It’s not every day I get to ask that.”

“I’m a Time Lord.”

“Riiight,” I say, smiling. “Not pompous at all.”

“I thought since you saved my life and I’ve got a brand new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing, you might fancy a trip,” the Doctor says, sort of guardedly though, since he probably remembers how I reacted the last time I saw him.

I don’t say anything for a few moments. “I think I have a bit of recovering to do after this whole moon ordeal...”

“Well, I can take you to the paradise planet Apalapucia for a holiday. Best place to recover.”

I stare at him blankly.

“Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s got a pinkish-purple sky, silver colonnades, soaring spires, an oxygen-rich atmosphere.” He lists the features enthusiastically. “You’d love it.”

I nod slowly, still unsure.

“Or, or, we could keep it closer to home,” he says fervently, stepping forward as he talks. “Keep it on Earth. Isn’t there anywhere you’ve been dying to go? I could take you there in a heartbeat. What do you say?”

“You’re a little overwhelming sometimes,” I say, holding up my hands to stop him.

The Doctor looks down curiously at my hands, at how they’re facing him. He takes them in his, turns them over gently. Then he looks me in the eye.

“So, where would you like to go?” he asks in an irresistibly smooth voice.

To my incredible astonishment, I find myself saying, “Surprise me.”

The Doctor smiles and leads me into the TARDIS.


	3. Venusian Pioneers and Story Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy my recap of basically the entire first season of New Who lol

The Doctor closes the TARDIS doors behind us. The lights flicker to life, illuminating the golden walls and aqua-toned center console. I follow the Doctor up the grates and watch him at work. He runs around all six control panels enclosing the central glass pillar that begins to rise and fall as he flips switches, presses buttons, winds up levers – using both hands and one foot to do so.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sight of this,” I say quietly, looking around at the room in wonder. “Don’t think I’d want to, either.”

“Well, you won’t have to if you want,” the Doctor says idly.

“What?” I say.

“What?” The Doctor peeks his head around the console. “So how far are you willing to let me take this ‘surprise’?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” I tell him. “I’ll let you take me anywhere as long as you don’t do anything in time. I’m not ready to see World War Three or the dinosaurs.”

“Oh, but the dinosaurs are fantastic!” the Doctor exclaims.

I shoot him a look.

“Fine,” he says, his lighthearted tone disappearing. “Are you sure you don’t want to get a little more adventurous, though? It’s just one trip, mind you.”

I raise one eyebrow. “Really? Then why did you make such a big deal out there about me coming along?” The Doctor scrunches his face and refuses to answer. “One trip. Let’s go, then.”

“Alright. Welcome aboard, Miss Courtois,” the Doctor says, bouncing over to the next panel. “Close down the gravitic anomalizer. Fire up the helmic regulator. And finally, the hand break.” He grins at me. “Ready?”

“No.”

“Off we go!”

The Doctor releases the hand break. The engines start their whirring, the glass pillar continues its motion, thrusting up and down with increased speed, and jets of steam hiss out of vents in the floor. The TARDIS vibrates under my feet. I almost expect to feel a sense of weightlessness, but I just feel like I’m standing on solid ground. Then with a huge jolt I’m thrown hard on the floor. I rub my elbow and look around for the Doctor. He fell on the other side. He pulls himself up and presses a large, white button.

“It’s a bit bumpy,” I say.

“Yeah, well.” He walks over to the top of the ramp, grabs the edges of the rails, and propels himself down to the doors. “So, we didn’t stray too far from your home planet. We’re still in your Solar System. Venus, to be precise, in the year 2009.”

“Doctor!” I exclaim as I run down the ramp. “I told you no time travel! Why would you go and do something I asked you not to do?”

“Calm down,” the Doctor says gently. “It’s only a couple of months into the future. I did it so I could show you this.”

The first instinct I have when the Doctor opens the TARDIS doors is to scream out in terror. I manage to hold it in because I haven’t been immediately sucked out into space, and also because the sight before me is so breathtakingly beautiful.

The TARDIS hovers in front of a large, pale orange and black planet so hot I can feel the heat radiating off it from way out here. Thin wisps of red and orange clouds are packed tightly in the planet’s atmosphere, wrapping it like a blanket. Millions of bright stars twinkle in the black backdrop of the night sky.

“Oh, wow,” I breathe. I step forward slowly to the very edge of the TARDIS. “Is this real?”

“Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty,” the Doctor says in a low voice in my ear. His breath tickles my neck. I blush, though I’m so flushed from the heat from Venus that he’d hardly be able to tell.

“Doctor,” I say, matching his tone.

“Mmm?” He leans down.

I reach up on my toes and whisper, “How are we still breathing?”

The Doctor throws his head back and laughs, then squeezes my shoulders. “There’s an oxygen shield around the TARDIS. Sort of like the bubble around the hospital, only the TARDIS won’t stop supplying us with air.”

I nod an look back out at the beautiful planet. The Doctor’s hands are still on my shoulders. My entire body flushes with a tingling heat that has nothing to do with Venus. Since I can’t seem to form a coherent thought in my head, I speak slowly when I say, “So, tell me why you wanted to show me Venus and why it was so pertinent that you had to time travel to do so.”

“Well, I wanted to show you a Venusian sunset,” the Doctor says. “A day on Venus is 116.75 Earth days. That means we missed the last one. I took us forward to, oh, about four hours before the next one.”

“Why couldn’t you just take us back to right before the last one?” I ask.

The Doctor steps away from me with widened eyes, opening his arms to the ceiling of the TARDIS. “Wh–why– _why_ do you always question me?” he says exasperatedly. “Are you always this difficult?”

“I’m not being difficult, I’m just asking questions.”

“No, you’re not just asking questions,” the Doctor says. “You’re questioning me. There’s a difference. Besides, the last sunset wasn’t that spectacular. Thought I’d try again.” The Doctor spins me around to face Venus. “Watch your sunset,” he grumbles, then stalks off to the console.

“Aw, come on,” I say. “I was just messing around.” I follow him and catch hold of his hand. He doesn’t turn around, but he doesn’t pull his hand away, either. “Will you watch the sunset with me, please?”

“It won’t be for another three hours and fifty-two minutes.”

I give his hand a little tug. “Then we’ve got time to kill. Let’s talk. Tell me a story.”

The Doctor turns around. “Why?”

“Education never ends, Doctor. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.” I raise my eyebrows in anticipation. Maybe this time my reference to Earth culture won’t go over the Doctor’s head like before. At the edge of the TARDIS I plop myself down with my back against the frame of the open door and dangle one leg out into space.

“Ah, Arthur Conan Doyle!” the Doctor says. He joins me at the TARDIS doors. “Fine old chap.”

“Of course, my dear Watson,” I say with a giggle.

The Doctor smiles. “So, you want to hear a story, Sherlock?”

I nod eagerly. The Doctor gives a heavy sigh, leans his head back against the door frame. He faces Venus, the open space. The space I haven’t quite grasped is our Solar System.

“I want to hear a story about your life, Doctor,” I clarify quietly.

The Doctor slowly turns his head. “Those stories are quite long, and I’m not sure they’re the type of stories you’d want to hear.”

I make a show of checking my watch. “We’ve got three hours and forty-nine minutes.”

The Doctor doesn’t say anything. I watch him pull his knee to his chest and drape his arm over it. The silence grows longer and I let it. It gives him time to realize I’m being patient, and time to decide if he really wants to talk.

As I stare out into the vast expanse of the universe outside of the TARDIS doors I begin to understand how warped my sense of outer space is. I used to look at science books and see all the planets in a row, circling around the sun. Sure, they all have their individual orbits rotating at their own speed, but still, it would seem like they’d be visible when looking at them from the outside. After all, I could see the Earth from the moon.

I know that space is big. Everyone knows space is big. But I think scientists and physicists and astronauts (and now aliens) are the only ones that know how big space really is. Now I have to give credit to that, too. Those Judoon came from an entirely different _planet_ , a different world altogether. If I had continued to talk to the Doctor that day at the Wharf, if he had told me tales of strange alien police with rhinoceros heads and shape-shifters that drink blood to change their physiology and spaceships that look like blue boxes and are bigger on the inside, I would have thought he was entirely crazy. But I wasn’t just told about it. I experienced it firsthand. I think that’s what’s made it so easy to believe.

I’ve heard that scientists have speculated about other galaxies existing besides our own. NASA has sent out pods with a collection of things from Earth a couple of times, trying to reach out to alien life. I know they want to send people out to explore beyond our closest planets, but the distance is just too long, even with spaceships that can travel at the speed of light. If they could just see what’s right beyond their doorstep...

“Doctor...correct me if I’m wrong, but there are hundreds of galaxies out there, right?”

“Right,” he says.

“And there’s a good hundred thousand different species in those galaxies.”

He tilts his head. “More or less. But go on.”

“Most of them have got to have advanced technology and time travel and teleportation. Why is Earth so out of the loop? Take the Judoon. Their technology was simple enough, besides that H2O thing you mentioned. And they’ve got spaceships! Earth always seemed like it was evolving so well. Now we just look like children.”

“Well, don’t be too discouraged,” the Doctor says brightly. “Earth isn’t the only planet behind in the times.” I scowl, which draws a small laugh from him. “Earth will catch up, don’t you worry.” He extends his leg and nudges my thigh with the toe of his shoe. “All in due time.”

“Can you tell me about all the alien stuff on Earth?” I ask.

“All of it?” the Doctor says, grinning. “We’ve only got two and a half hours. Do you know how much aliens have incorporated themselves into the Earth over the centuries?”

“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “You said there’s been some alien activity recently. Tell me about it.”

So, the Doctor tells me about it.

He says a few years ago, back in 2006, a spacecraft crashed into Big Ben and landed in the River Thames. The Doctor had a friend at the time, Rose Tyler, that traveled with him. His face gets sort of sad when he says her name, which makes me curious. The spacecraft was apparently a decoy of some sort, and it was actually launched from Earth and made a turnaround to crash land back to its origin. The confusion of the crash allowed a family of aliens called the Slitheen to infiltrate the British government, declare a matter of national security, and request that the United Nations release the activation codes to launch a nuclear strike against a mothership hovering over London. The Doctor figured out that the Slitheen really wanted to blow up the Earth and sell its radioactive remains as a fuel source, so while he and Rose and some reporter named Harriet Jones were trapped in 10 Downing Street, he had Rose’s friend Mickey hack the controls of a Royal Navy submarine and fire a missile at the building they were trapped in. The building exploded, but the three of them were protected in a steel-walled room.

The Doctor says the government covered the whole thing up as a hoax, but it was still making headlines for months after. It seems so casual, making headlines. I wonder what I would have thought if I’d had seen the crash on the news or read about it in the newspaper. Not that I read the newspaper. Or watch the news, for that matter. Would I have believed it then as I do now?

I enjoy the way the Doctor tells his story. He gets ecstatic over the smallest things, and when he relives the moment as he tells me about it he gets excited all over again. And I want to ask about Rose but I don’t feel like I can. Not now, at least. Whenever she comes up, it’s like he’s happy to be talking about her again but it also hurts, or that it seems wrong somehow. I wonder where she is, what happened between them. What made her leave the Doctor.

The Doctor runs his hands through his gelled hair, making it stick up on all ends. Even all messy, his hair still looks amazing. The Doctor nods to Venus and I gasp. I had been so engrossed in his story, watching his face, his eyes, his body, as he talked that I had forgotten where I was, which is a pretty hard thing to do, considering.

The large, pale orange planet slowly gets overtaken by a dark, fiery-orange glow seeping in from the left side. It must be the start of the sunset, and judging by the position of the blood-red atmosphere clashing with the pale orange, I’d say the sun is behind us. I know Venus is closer to the sun than Earth, so I have no idea how we aren’t burning to death right now. At this point, though, I’ve just got to accept things.

I look back at the Doctor. As the colors of Venus deepen, they cast soft orange shadows on the TARDIS and caress the Doctor’s face in a warm glow.

“Is your life usually like this?” I ask. “Relaxed, watching sunsets.”

“Not really, no,” the Doctor says. “I travel the universe searching for the weird and the wonderful. My life is more like how it was on the moon.”

“I see.”

The Doctor straightens himself up and asks, “Does it interest you?”

“Possibly,” I say apprehensively.

“Ah.” He leans his head back and runs his tongue along the back of his teeth. “Next story then?”

I nod.

“You might like this one. Although, maybe not. It’s rather horrible. It involves the Daleks I told you about on the moon and quite a lot of deaths. But there is a swordfight.” The Doctor stops to pull at his lip, then he grins at me.

“What?”

“I can say stuff like that now,” he says. “‘I told you about on the moon’. You know, because we’re going on adventures now.”

I shake my head and smile at my lap. _Adventure_ , I correct him in my head. “What’s your next story, Doctor?”

“Well, Rose, Jack Harkness and I–” The Doctor stops at my quizzical look about this new person. “Oh, you’d love Jack. Cheeky bastard. Big flirt with the ladies. And the men. Well, come to think of it, he’s a big flirt with anything that moves, really. Maybe he’ll pop up one of these days. Anyway. We’re abducted and transported to this spaceship called Satellite 5. It used to be a news control center, which is funny to call it that because when I say ‘used to be’ I mean a hundred years into the future from now, so at the time we were _way_ into the future...”

The Daleks end up infiltrating Satellite 5 – now called the Game Station at the time of the Doctor’s story – and the Doctor meets the Dalek Emperor. He’s incredibly surprised to see that the Emperor survived something called the Time War. The Time Lords and the Daleks fought each other to the death, and the Doctor thought he was the only survivor. He’s the only Time Lord left. He and Rose met a Dalek on one of their adventures, and it turned out that a Dalek survived the Time War after all. I can only imagine how badly that made the Doctor feel, living his life thinking he’s the only survivor of a war, the last of his species, only to find out that his enemy survived all along.

The Doctor explains that the Daleks are not the same as they once were, though. The Emperor escaped to Earth in a crippled ship and had to rebuild his race by harvesting DNA material from selected humans that were transmatted from the Game Station (I had to ask what that meant, and he says it’s like a transfer of matter. Not quite teleportation. It breaks down matter and reassembles it rather than transporting it).

There was no way the Doctor and Rose and Jack were going to defeat the Daleks on the Game Station, even with this delta wave the Doctor was attempting to create to wipe out the Daleks. As it was, Jack had already been killed. When I question this, since the Doctor said he hoped Jack might show up, he just puts a finger to his lips to make me wait. The Doctor ended up tricking Rose into the TARDIS and sent her back to London while he stayed on the Game Station to finish what he started.

The Doctor goes quiet. His mouth pulls into a sad smile and he breathes a huff of air out of his nose.

“Doctor?” I say quietly.

“She never could follow directions,” he says. “Always questioning me.” He looks up at me and grins.

My face gets hot. “Finish your story. What did she do?”

“She found a way to come back, but it almost killed her. So instead...I let it kill me.”

“But...what?” I stare at him, at the very much alive Doctor, quizzically. “What?”

“Ah, no questions,” he says, pressing his finger to his lips again. “I like a bit of theatrics.”

I roll my eyes.

What Rose did was something I don’t think I’d ever have the courage to do. The Doctor says the TARDIS is alive, so Rose found a way to open the heart of the TARDIS, the Time Vortex, absorb it into her body, and travel back to the Game Station. She got back, wrapped in the glow of the Time Vortex – something that the human mind can’t handle – and disintegrated the Dalek Emperor and his entire fleet. She also brought Jack Harkness back to life, but she didn’t know that. The Doctor says he was on a different level.

Not only is the human mind not adept to hold the Time Vortex, the human body isn’t either, and Rose started to burn up. So the Doctor kissed her and absorbed all of the power. With nowhere to go, the energy burned the Doctor from the inside. He died in the TARDIS, in front of Rose. There’s a perk to being a Time Lord, though. Regeneration. The Doctor I know, the Doctor sitting in front of me, isn’t the Doctor that Rose spent most of her time with.

A Time Lord has the ability to regenerate when they die or when they are close to death. This form is the Doctor’s tenth regeneration. He retains the memories of all his past regenerations and just basically gets a new body and a new personality each time.

There’s something off about the way he talks about this new body. He didn’t seem to mind it when he talks about the way he changed. But he says later when he was unconscious and healing, his subconscious picked up on Rose crying to her mother. Something about how she thought she knew him, then he goes and does this. The Doctor looks at me, as if he’s hoping for an explanation, but I don’t feel it’s my place to say anything even though I might know what Rose meant.

Rose loved the first Doctor she met. The Doctor he was before, not the Doctor he is now. That’s the impression I got. She just had to learn to love this Doctor. He mentioned she was only nineteen. She was young, it would have been hard for her to make that transition, to accept that it’s still the same person inside even if the outside is different. But I don’t know the whole story. I mean, she had a boyfriend. Apparently she just up and left him for the Doctor. What do I know.

“Something in my regeneration went wrong and the energy released was luring some type of alien enemy to Earth,” the Doctor says. “I was unconscious in Rose Tyler’s flat, trying to recover from the regeneration, and she and Mickey were attacked by Santa robots while shopping, and then later a lethal spinning Christmas tree got itself in her flat and nearly killed Rose, Mickey and Rose’s mum, Jackie.”

I have to resist the urge to laugh. Santa robots? Spinning Christmas trees? Sounds more like a bad holiday horror movie.

The enemy turned out to be the Sycorax, an ugly, warrior-type alien that demanded the Earth’s population submit as slaves or else they would send one-third of the world’s population into a hypnotic state and force them to commit suicide. I comment on the odd number of people and the Doctor just nods, saying that’s the first thing that tipped him off to the Sycorax’s plan.

The TARDIS got transmatted to the Sycorax’s spaceship above Earth, with Rose, Mickey and the barely conscious Doctor inside. Rose had managed to stall the Sycorax and buy the Doctor enough time to recover and figure out that the Sycorax were using blood control, simple voo-doo, to control the humans. One-third of the humans on Earth had A-positive blood type, and the Sycorax had intercepted one of those pods I had ironically been thinking about earlier, the ones that NASA sent out with pieces of Earth on board back in the seventies. A blood sample had been part of it. An A-positive blood sample.

So the Doctor shut down the blood control, saving the hypnotized A-positive humans that were standing on the edges of high buildings waiting to jump to their deaths. The Doctor says he was never worried, though. Voo-doo, magic, blood control, hypnosis, all that stuff, can only go so far. It’s all the power of suggestion. The Sycorax could never _make_ the humans commit suicide.

Just because the Doctor saved the Earth didn’t mean the Sycorax were going to leave willingly, though, so the Doctor challenged the Sycorax leader to a sword fight. The Doctor laughs at the memory, saying how he particularly enjoyed that fight because he was still in Jackie’s boyfriend’s bathrobe. During the fight, the Sycorax leader sliced off the Doctor’s hand. I gasp, my eyes darting to the Doctor’s perfectly fine hands, but he just smiles and explains that since he was within the first fifteen hours of his regeneration, he just grew it back.

The Doctor and the Sycorax leader resumed their match and the Doctor eventually forced him to submit. But the Sycorax leader was a coward, and as the Doctor walked away the Sycorax attempted to attack the Doctor from behind. The Doctor says he was lucky that Jackie’s boyfriend got hungry during the night because he found a fruit in the bathrobe and was able to chuck it at a sensor on the outside of the ship, which triggered part of the wing to fold and sent the Sycorax leader to his death.

A dark look fills the Doctor’s face.

“Are you alright?” I ask.

“Just remembering,” he says. “Remember Harriet Jones, from the first story? Well, she became Prime Minister by the time this happened. The Sycorax transmatted her to their ship as spokesman for Earth. After I ordered the Sycorax to leave Earth and never return, I took Rose, Mickey and Harriet back home.”

The Doctor is quiet. We both look out at Venus. The fiery-orange glow inches its way over the planet. I wonder if this is the sunset, or if there’s something more.

“At the time, Torchwood was a secret government institution dedicated to alien research and weaponry,” the Doctor says in a low, dark voice. “When we got out of the TARDIS Harriet Jones instructed Torchwood to blow up the Sycorax ship. _After_ they were retreating. I was furious. I told her they were leaving.” He grits his teeth and yanks at bits of his messy hair. “She said, ‘You’re not always here to save us, Doctor.’ As if that would justify her actions.”

“Did you do anything?” I ask quietly.

“There was nothing I could do, the ship was already destroyed,” the Doctor says. Then he shrugs. “But I did threaten to bring down her government with six words.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Whispered to her assistant, ‘Don’t you think she looks tired?’ Drove her mad. It started to raise questions about her health and her ability to continue her duties.”

“You’re terrible and brilliant,” I say, shaking my head.

“Oh, look at that,” the Doctor says. “One hour and twenty-two minutes left.”

“What does a sunset look like from outside of the planet?” I ask. “Can it look more different than that?” I nod to the transitioning colors of Venus.

“It’s a surprise,” the Doctor says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Something on the console beeps a few times. The Doctor jumps up and runs over to it with the agility of a cheetah and fidgets around.

“Do you have any more alien-Earth stories?” I ask.

“Just one that involves the world, and it’s the worst of them all.”

“You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to,” I say.

“You want to hear it,” he says ominously as he returns to the edge of the TARDIS.

“I only want to hear about that stuff because...” I chew on my lip for a moment, searching for the right words.

“Because why?”

“Well, because I’m here,” I say. “I’m here in space...with you. I got kidnapped and sent to the moon with you. I’m wrapped up in this unbelievably unreal alien stuff now and I just...want to know.”

“Okay, then.” The Doctor settles himself in. “About six months after the incident with the Sycorax, Rose and I returned to London to find that Torchwood Institute had been conducting experiments, releasing manifestations all over the world that humans had believed were the ghosts of dead loved ones. They were really impressions of something forcing its way into this universe.” The Doctor closes his eyes. “Torchwood got their hands on something really dangerous, and it cost a lot of lives.”

What Torchwood possessed was a large, black spherical object, a Void ship, something the Doctor claims is impossible but turned out to be more real than he could have imagined. It appeared through an invisible breach in the universe, which was also Torchwood’s source for the ghost energy. The ship is designed to exist in the space between universes, a nothingness called the Void. The ship is completely undetectable by all scientific instruments.

Torchwood had been releasing the ghosts onto the Earth’s surface for mere minutes at a time periodically through the day every day for months. They didn’t know what would happen if they kept the breach open for an extended period of time. That day, they found out. A couple of employees that went rogue initiated an unscheduled ghost shift and forcibly opened the breach to full capacity, which caused millions of ghosts to appear across the globe and materialize into their true form: Cybermen. They took control of Torchwood and ordered complete surrender of humanity for conversion.

The Doctor was puzzled at how the Cybermen could have created an advanced piece of technology like the Void ship. The Cyber Leader said they didn’t create it, they followed its course through the breach. They came from the parallel version of Earth.

This is where the story gets a little confusing because so much happens at once. The Cybermen started their human conversions inside Torchwood just as the Void ship opened and released four Daleks, the enigmatic Cult of Skaro, and the Genesis Ark, which was stolen Time Lord technology. Of course, they would have the technology for a Void ship. Then, people from the parallel Earth started floating back and forth through the Void. They were here to help. At one point they took the Doctor with them and told him that the breach in the universes was causing global warming on the parallel Earth. The Doctor theorized that both planets would fall into the Void if he didn’t seal it off.

The Genesis Ark needed some sort of living flesh to activate it, which is why the Daleks were searching for a human. They were keeping Rose and Mickey hostage at Torchwood. The Doctor rescued them from the four Daleks but Mickey, being the clumsy idiot he was (the Doctors words, not mine), tripped and touched the Genesis Ark, activating it as they escaped. Well, the easiest way to explain Time Lord technology is: it’s bigger on the inside. On the outside the Genesis Ark is about the same size as a Dalek, but imprisoned inside were millions of Daleks that had been there since the Time War. The Doctor called it a prison ship. The Daleks then engaged in battle with the Cybermen and humanity was caught in the crossfire. The Doctor had to find a quick solution to ending the war or else the Earth would soon be destroyed. He explains to me slowly what he did. I have a feeling it was so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself.

Crossing the Void causes a traveler to become saturated in “Void material”. If he opened the breach and reversed it, anything saturated in Void material would be pulled in. He meant it to be for the Daleks and Cybermen, but the Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, and his allies from the parallel Earth had the Void material on them as well. The only choice he had was to send them to the parallel Earth to avoid them ending up in the Void. He would stay behind and open the breach, and somehow hold on to an anti-gravity hold to keep himself from getting drawn into the Void as well. Apparently Rose didn’t go willingly.

So the Doctor reversed the breach and the Daleks and Cybermen started to get sucked into the Void. The force was so strong it was drawing them in from all over the country. If he held it open long enough it would take them in from all over the world. Then the Doctor quietly reminds me that Rose never listened, and she teleported back to be with him. So there they were, each hanging on for dear life as Cybermen and Daleks flew past them into the Void, trying not to get sucked in themselves. Then the lever on Rose’s side started to slip, which closed the breach a little bit. She let go of her anti-gravity hold and went to fix the lever, even though the Doctor was screaming and yelling at her to just stay there and hold on. But she insisted she could do it, because that’s the kind of girl she was.

But then she slipped. She lost her grip on the lever and all the Doctor could do was watch as she fell towards the Void. At the last second, though, Pete Tyler, Rose’s father from the parallel universe, appeared just in time to grab Rose and they transported back.

The Doctor stares at his lap, picking at a loose thread at the edge of his suit jacket. “The breach closed then,” he says quietly, and the pain in his voice is almost tangible. “It was just a wall. I was on one side, and she was on the other.”

“But you’ve got the TARDIS,” I say. “Why didn’t you go see her?”

“You can’t travel to parallel universes,” the Doctor says. “A parallel Earth occupies the same space-time coordinates as this Earth, but in a different dimension. Think about geometry. Two parallel lines run alongside each other indefinitely. They never touch. That’s how it is with parallel universes.”

“But there was that breach in the universe that allowed those people to teleport back and forth,” I say. “The Daleks figured out how to cross the Void or whatever. Maybe you could, too. Maybe–”

The Doctor suddenly springs to his feet. “What good would that do?” he yells. He stomps away and starts pacing the inside of the TARDIS, shouting. “What the hell good would that do? Didn’t you hear what happened the last time there was a breach in the universe? All of these things I’ve been telling you aren’t just stories! People died!”

“But I thought–”

“You thought what, eh?” the Doctor says, striding over to me. “You thought I’d risk the lives of fourteen billion people on two different planets for one girl? For a little bit of romance?”

I cringe and look down at my hands. The Doctor scoffs and storms down a hallway that I hadn’t noticed before.

My face burns hot with embarrassment. I thought asking why he didn’t go see Rose was an innocent question, and maybe it was. But I pushed it. Now the Doctor’s angry. I pissed off the man that brought me to outer space and is my only way back to Earth. Smooth move, Courtois.

I twist around on the TARDIS floor to dangle both of my feet outside – a very gutsy move on my part – and lean the side of my head against the doorframe. Hopefully the sunset passes quickly so the Doctor can take me home.

Something draws my attention out of the corner of my eye.

A giant, strange metal object, honestly what I can only assume is a spaceship even though I’ve never seen anything like it except in movies, makes a slow progression through space. The ship is shaped like an X with a dome in the middle and something weird dragging along behind it, sort of like a limp hot-air balloon, and by the way the ship is circling, like a slow-motion free fall, I’d say it doesn’t have any power. And they’re heading straight for Venus.

I scramble to my feet and run through the control room to the back of the TARDIS, where the Doctor disappeared earlier, shouting for him. He doesn’t answer me.

“Doctor, stop acting like a child and get out here right now!” I scream. My voice echoes through the TARDIS, making me wonder just how big the inside really is. “There’s a spaceship out here with no power and it’s going to crash into Venus any second!”

The sound of footsteps running along grates comes from overhead. The Doctor’s head appears over the railing a few levels above me. “What’s that?”

“You heard me,” I say. “There’s a ship out there about to crash into the planet. We need to help them.”

The Doctor meets me at the TARDIS doors to have a look at the rogue spaceship. He crosses his arms and huffs. “Well, that’s not good, is it?” he says casually. “Venus’s atmosphere is 96.5 percent carbon dioxide and around 740 Kelvin. If they get any closer they’ll suffocate and then get a cremation free of charge, if they aren’t squashed like a pancake first.”

“Then shouldn’t we go help them instead of standing around?” I say through gritted teeth.

The Doctor laughs and gives me a one-armed hug. “Look at you, you’re fitting in just fine! You actually remind me of one of my other companions, Martha. Very headstrong in the saving people department. But you’re jaunty and somewhat bossy, like Donna.” He dashes up to the console and presses a series of buttons.

I don’t know what I’m fitting into because I thought I was only here for one trip, but it’s a little unnerving how the Doctor so blatantly compared me to his other...how did he say it? Companions?

“You...hmm...had lots of companions then?” I ask. My stomach twists into small knots, like I almost don’t want to know the answer. I laugh at myself. What, am I jealous now?

“Every so often I’ll meet some people that tag along,” the Doctor says distractedly.

“Donna and...Martha, was it? Were they recent? I mean, after Rose?” I’m on thin ice after what happened a few minutes ago.

“Yeah. They didn’t stay too long.” The Doctor slams his fist down on a large button and the TARDIS gives a huge jolt. I manage to grab hold of the railing and keep myself off of the floor this time.

The Doctor pulls out blacked-rimmed glasses from his inner jacket pocket to examine the single screen on the control console. “Well, their levels don’t look good,” the Doctor mumbles, clicking his tongue. He grabs his overcoat from the fork in the coral pillar closest to the door. “Not good at all. Come on, then. Those two astronauts don’t have much time.”

Opening the TARDIS doors releases white vapor so thick I can’t see my hand in front of my face. Next to me, the Doctor fishes his new sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and waves his hands in front of his face to clear the vapor as he walks forward.

“Onward, Gen!” he says.

I follow his motions and use my hand as a fan to cut a path through the cloud. In the haze I don’t notice the Doctor stop and I collide with him.

“There’s a door here,” he informs me, and proceeds to drag the sonic screwdriver around the doorframe. The sonic buzzes and the tip glows a barely visible blue. The Doctor slides the door, which is more like a vertical hatch, open and the vapor dissipates into a room that materializes into a cockpit.

Two astronauts, a young man and woman, are there, and they don’t look good. The young man is crumbled in a chair, wide-eyed, sweating and breathing heavily. The young woman is propped up against the captain’s chair, sweating as well but visibly more composed. There are no lights on in the cockpit, nothing illuminated on the control panel. The ship has no power, which means they have no air. I start to feel it.

“Hey, how are ya?” the Doctor says loudly, making the two astronauts cringe in surprise. He pockets his sonic screwdriver and points at each of them in turn. “You. You. Blue box out there. In.”

The stunned pair don’t move.

“Um, sorry,” I say. “What the Doctor meant to say is that we were hanging around watching the Venusian sunset when we saw your ship heading for the planet. Thought we’d drop in and offer you guys a ride.” As an afterthought I add, “I’m Genevieve, by the way.”

The Doctor cocks his head to one side and leans over to murmur, “These people are running out of oxygen and plummeting to a fiery death. My way was shorter.” He straightens up and addresses the others: “Come on, shift yourselves!” He gestures frantically through the hatch. “You can say thank you later.”

The man just stares at us with a gaping mouth. The woman eventually finds her voice. “We have valuable equipment and data aboard the _Genetrix_. We can’t just leave.”

The Doctor furrows his brow, then shrugs. “Fair enough. Stay here and die.”

“Doctor!” I hiss.

With a curt wave, he turns smartly and makes a single stride for the hatch. His coat whirls around, sending clouds of vapor spinning through the cockpit. I grab his arm yank him back.

“Doctor, we have to help,” I whisper. “You can’t risk these people’s lives just because you’re still upset with me about earlier.”

“I’m not still upset with you about earlier,” he snaps.

“Oh, okay then, so you’re giving up on them so easily because you don’t know how you’d save the ship?” I say sarcastically.

The Doctor narrows his eyes. “I hate you.”

I grin. “No you don’t.”

“Right then,” the Doctor says decisively. He whips out his sonic and gives it a few experimentory clicks as he walks to the front of the cockpit. He waves the probe across the bank of controls, the blue glow now brighter since the vapor somewhat evaporated.

“What’s that thing?” the woman asks, clearly suspicious.

“Sonic screwdriver,” he says proudly, showing it off with a huge smile.

The woman glances at me and I just shake my head. “Don’t ask. Save yourself the trouble.”

The Doctor makes a rude face and shouts, “Oi!”

“It doesn’t look like a screwdriver!” I say vehemently.

“It’s not supposed to look like a screwdriver!” the Doctor says. If he’d have said that any more obstinately he should have stomped his foot down like a child.

“Then what’s the point of calling it that?”

“It’s handy! Like a screwdriver! And it’s sonic!”

“Are you two married?” the young man asks. It’s the first thing he’s said since we arrived and it catches me off guard. He’s got a thick, English accent. It’s not crisp like the Doctor’s. It kind of sounds like he’s talking with his mouth full.

“What?” the Doctor and I say together.

“You two squabble like an old married couple,” he huffs, wiping his brow. “Like my gran and gramps, you are.”

I stick my tongue out at the Doctor. He resumes his scanning.

The Doctor scowls at the control panel. “I don’t know whether to admire the human race, or point and laugh. Bobbing along in your little kiddie’s balloon above a meltingly hot world in the name of exploration. Indomitable or stupid, it’s a fine line.”

It’s hard to tell through her already red and sweaty face, but I think the woman’s cheeks flush with anger. “Now listen–”

“No!” the Doctor counters, glaring back. “You listen! Here’s what’s going to happen. We are plunging at–” He jumps up and down “–three kilometers per minute into the atmosphere of Venus. Below 30 kilometers, it’s going to get messy. Fact: the mean temperature on the surface of Venus is 735 degrees Kelvin. The pressure is 92 times that of Earth. Conclusion: the further we fall, we’ll either be cooked or crushed. Your choice.”

As if to emphasize his point, a metal panel on the side of the ship buckles in on itself. The loud, echoing crash makes me jump, but it wasn’t enough to break the tension the Doctor caused. I don’t know him well enough to know if he’s still mad about what I said before or if he’s really over it and this is just how he is under pressure when he’s about to die trying to save unwilling people. I hope for the best and go with door number two.

“Sorry,” I say to the others.

The woman turns to the Doctor. “Instead of lecturing us, help us.”

The Doctor smiles. “Better.”

The man pulls himself to his feet. He’s young, in shape, but the effort is difficult for him since they’ve been low on oxygen for so long. At least when we were running around in the hospital we had a larger air supply. This ship is small.

“What can we do?” he asks.

“Better,” the Doctor says again, raising a finger to the young astronaut.

I release a long stream of air from my lungs. Feel like a bomb was just diffused. Which wire to cut? Red wire? Blue wire? The Doctor’s got a thousand wires.

“Okay, Doctor, so we’re going to save the ship?” I ask.

The Doctor nods strongly, now galvanized into action. “You!” He points to the young man. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You don’t look old enough to shave let alone wear an IASA uniform.” The young man opens his mouth to comment but the Doctor waves him away. “Vent the thermo buffers.”

“Check.”

I, however, furrow my brows. IASA? What the hell is that? That doesn’t sound like a branch of NASA. Maybe it’s European?

“What’s your name?” I ask the young man as he passes me.

“Rick,” he says, and for some odd reason, he flashes me a wide flirtatious smile. No one ever smiles at me like that. “Genevieve, right?”

“Yeah.” I lower my head quickly out of nerves. “So the Doctor told you to vent what?”

“The thermostat buffers. They’re over here on the rear control bank,” Rick says, and he motions for me to follow him.

The Doctor clears his throat loudly. “Gen, be a pal,” he says. He tosses the sonic screwdriver to me. There’s an odd gleam in his eye as he does so. I can’t quite place it. Annoyance maybe? “Second level down, control stack to the right of the ladder. I need you to regulate power flow to the pressure exchange. Just point and hope.”

I turn the sonic screwdriver over in my hands a couple of times. There aren’t any buttons along the thin silver stem. How does it work? Do I just wave it around and it knows what to do?

The Doctor steps forward. “Small button here, this extends and retracts here. Aim and press this button,” he says quietly.

“Gotcha,” I say. “Didn’t know there were buttons.” I head back through the hatch, the way we came, and down the ladder to the left of the other side of the door. It’s unbearably hot on the second level. Beads of sweat drip down my face and perspiration soaks my thin jacket within minutes. I don’t know how the Doctor manages with his suit and coat. He didn’t seem to mind; he wasn’t sweating. I take off my jacket, drag a dry portion of the sleeve across my forehead, then tie it around my waist.

It’s not that difficult to find the control stack. Just a large box, like any circuit breaker back on Earth. On closer inspection, though, I see about forty control stacks. The Doctor said go to the one to the right of the ladder, and how he knew that was the right one I’ll never guess, but I point the sonic screwdriver at it anyway, feeling pretty foolish as I do so. Before I can press the button the _Genetrix_ lurches hard. I fall into the railing of the ladder and steady myself.

The lurch causes a bulkhead panel across the room to buckle and send a fresh blast of vapor into the room. This time it’s different, though. I stare at it peculiarly. Dirty yellow vapor hangs in a large, thick cloud a few inches above the ground. It bobs around apparently unthreateningly, but the longer it floats there, the more defined the cloud becomes and the more oxygen it consumes. The air becomes thicker and I struggle for breath.

The dirty yellow vapor shapes itself similar to a translucent human body. Towards the top of the crude humanoid shape are points of light, sparkling like two points of burning coals where the eyes should be.

A communication system on the wall to my left crackles to life and the Doctor’s voice breaks through the static. “Gen? How’s it coming down there?”

I keep my eyes on the vapor and scoot over to the comm system. My breathing is so labored at this point I don’t know how I’m going to respond. I’d take being stranded on the moon in a hospital over this any day. My fingers fumble for the call button. I can’t find the one for my end of the transmission.

Static hisses through the speaker again and the Doctor’s worried voice comes through: “Genevieve?”

The next button I press clears the static, so I take a chance on it. “Doctor.” I try to stay calm but even I can hear the fear in my slow, weak voice. “Get down here. Now.”

Moments later, the Doctor slides down the ladder and lands heavily on the floor. He didn’t even bother to use the rungs. Rick and the woman astronaut clamber down at a much slower pace.

“Gen!” he shouts, looking around the stacks of scientific instruments and equipment cluttered in the room.

“Here,” I say weakly.

He starts toward me but I stop him, pointing the sonic screwdriver towards the dirty yellow human cloud.

“Oh, man,” Rick whispers. “Devika, are you seeing this?”

The sudden company appears to startle the vapors because the tendrils of gas spiraling in the somewhat human form blend together and shape themselves again a couple of times before resuming its casual bobbing motion.

Now with the Doctor here, I don’t have to be so afraid and I can actually look at the vapor and try to understand it, think about what it could be. I need to keep an open mind.

So it’s vapor. It seems to be alive. It can shape itself. A gaseous life form?

“Oh, look at you,” the Doctor whispers to the cloud. He grins at me, his face full of fascination. Leave it to Gassy over there to make everything alright. “Look at you.”

“What’s it doing?” Devika asks.

A gaseous arm stretches out, wisps of vapor dissipating as it wafts over a panel. The controls spark and burn.

“Stop it!” Rick shouts. He steps forward. “It’s screwing with the _Genetrix_.”

Rick's movement causes the creature to turn and face him. It hisses angrily, its eyes burning brighter. The fear inside me returns. Suddenly I don’t feel so confident that the Doctor and his little sonic stick can fight living toxic gas.

“Hey, wispy man!” the Doctor calls, waving his arms. “Over here!”

The creature turns with surprising speed. A gaseous arm lashes out, releasing a shower of liquid toward the Doctor. He ducks away as droplets spatter across the back of his coat. It begins to smoke and the fabric deteriorates as holes form across its surface. He quickly shrugs off the coat and hurls it to the floor.

“Oh, Wispy, that was rude,” the Doctor admonishes. “I loved that coat. Janis Joplin gave me that coat.”

The creature turns back to the control stack as if there was never any interruption. The Doctor sniffs at the dirty smoke curling up from the remains of his coat. “Sulfuric acid. Of course!” He glances up at Rick, Devika and I. “Sulfuric acid was called ‘oil of vitriol’ by eighth-century alchemists.”

Rick furrows his brow. “So?” he shouts.

“Man’s got a point.” I gesture to the creature. “What is that?”

“Ladies and gentleman,” the Doctor announces with a theatrical flourish. “You are looking at the indigenous life form of the planet Venus!”

Devika snorts. “There can’t have been life on Venus for billions of years.”

“You’d think, not since the oceans evaporated,” the Doctor admits. “Now, that was a day and a half. But look!” He points to the gas creature, so consumed by the control stack that the threat of us humans seems to be discarded for now. “Bonded molecules of acidic gas, coalescing, forming and reforming in a pressure cooker of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulfuric acid. Life found a way!”

Devika jabs a finger at the creature. “And it’s tearing my probe apart!”

“Doctor, I can hardly breathe,” I say quietly, struggling to keep on my feet. It’s hard enough to deal with no air, but my body has no way to regulate temperature either. The sweat traveled from my face to my hair and is now dripping off that, too.

But of course, the Doctor doesn’t seem to hear. He’s too fascinated by the creature, watching it spray a fine mist of acid, causing an instrument bank to bubble and melt. Its gaseous head turns to the Doctor suddenly. It hisses at him, but I don’t think it was meant to be cruel. Perhaps hissing is its only way of communication. So was that desperation?

“Perhaps you deserve it,” the Doctor says, glaring at Devika. I’m lost. “That control bank. What does it do?”

“Regulates the atmospheric sifters,” Rick says. “Deployment, analysis, everything. The _Genetrix_ ’s prime function is full-spectrum analysis of the Venusian cloud layer, studying the samples to assess terraforming potential.”

“Atmospheric...” the Doctor muses. “Atmospheric sifters?” His face hardens. “Tell me you didn’t?”

Now I’m not so lost. Back in the TARDIS the Doctor said Venus’s atmosphere was 96.5 percent carbon dioxide. Now he’s saying this creature is a life form of Venus’s atmosphere, and it’s made up of carbon dioxide. If Rick and Devika have been taking samples of Venus’s atmosphere...

“You really are as stupid as I thought.” The Doctor’s eyes burn with rage. I concede from earlier that he just gets really passionate when saving things. “Look at him! Bonded molecules of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and sulfuric acid!”

Realization dawns on Rick’s face. “Oh, Dev.”

Devika’s face pales. “Oh no. Please, no.”

“The penny drops!” the Doctor says sarcastically. “No wonder Wispy’s none too happy. You’ve been hoovering up his relatives! Purge those sifters, now!”

“On it!” Rick stumbles to the control stack. The creature rounds on him, hissing and spitting acid.

“Wispy,” the Doctor says gently. “May I call you Wispy?” His arms open wide as he steps closer. “I’m not sure if you can understand me, but we need to get to that control bank. Make this right. What do you say? Want to help us out?”

The creature tilts its head in a strangely human pose. With every second that aches by, the temperature rises and breathing becomes more painful, movement more sluggish. Wispy begins to move. The Doctor lets out a relieved breath and his face relaxes. He steps towards the panel, but Wispy lashes out, shrieking in anger. The Doctor dodges back and raises his arms protectively.

Without thinking I launch myself off of the wall. “Wispy, over here!” I stagger towards the creature, waving my heavy arms around as best I can. Wispy wails and moves towards me instead, away from the controls. I back away, now slightly scared, but at least I’ve got its attention. “Do your work, Doctor!”

“Do it fast!” Rick shouts. He jumps in next to me. Wispy doesn’t like Rick very much so it seems to forget about the Doctor altogether now and heads towards us even faster.

The Doctor’s eyes linger on me for half a second before he rounds on the sifter controls. His eyes had that same peculiar blaze as before. I don’t think too much on it this time because now I have Wispy stalking me.

I’m appalled that the Doctor appears to be unaffected by the pressure and heat bearing down on us. Maybe it’s an alien thing. He may be able to tolerate the conditions, but he can’t fix the situation. He snarls and slams his fist repeatedly on the controls.

“It’s fused!” he growls.

“We’ve got to...got to unlock them,” Devika says between ragged breaths.

Wispy has Rick and I with our backs against a bulkhead. A viewport cracks above us. I stumble back and brace myself against the wall. The sonic screwdriver in my hand makes a tiny scratching sound as it hits the metal. I completely forgot I still had it.

“Doctor!” I shout. “Catch!” I throw the sonic screwdriver across the control room and immediately duck as Wispy sprays a mist of sulfuric acid that fizzes and burns into the bulkhead above me. I didn’t even see if the Doctor got the screwdriver or not.

“One chance,” I hear the Doctor say, so I assume he caught it. The air fills with the incessant buzz of the sonic. Wispy turns away from Rick and I. I slump down to the floor, feeling as if my head is about to explode, and catch a glimpse of Wispy’s incandescent eyes burning with fury as it floats towards the Doctor.

“Come on, come on!” the Doctor urges his sonic screwdriver, and the buzzing intensifies. The vaporous alien raises both arms, shrieking and hissing in anger. Then, just as Wispy’s toxic hands are about to make contact with the Doctor, the control stack explodes in a shower of sparks.

“Got it! Sifter’s purging!” the Doctor shouts excitedly.

Wispy throws its head back, gaseous tendrils snaking around it, and lets out an alien shriek before its whole form dissipates into nothing. Smoking droplets of acid hiss to the floor.

The _Genetrix_ shudders. “We’re...still falling,” Devika wheezes. She drops to the ground, the pressure forcing her down, no doubt.

“Nothing I can do,” the Doctor says, pulling Devika back to her feet and leading her to the ladder. A control panel buckles as if it were punched and sparks billow and fizz onto the deck plates. “Up the ladder, into the TARDIS.”

“The what?” Rick asks as we support each other the short distance to the ladder. The _Genetrix_ gives another lurch.

I heave Rick forward. “The big blue box! Move!” Rick stumbles toward the ladder and begins to climb. The Doctor smirks at me.

“Quickly!” the Doctor urges him. He takes my arm and helps me up. The ship shakes roughly again. “We’ve got seconds before–”

The shaking immediately ceases. The Doctor stops mid-sentence, I stop mid-ladder. A serene calm takes over, alarms silence, warning lights blink off one by one. Almost instantly it feels easier to breathe. I suck in lungful after lungful of cooler air as if I’ll never take a breath again.

Up in the cockpit Rick taps a readout screen. “We’re rising,” he says, a grin spreading across his face.

The Doctor looks dubious. “Can’t be. I haven’t done anything.”

Devika looks out through one of the viewports and waves frantically at us. “Guys. You really need to see this.”

We crowd in behind her. The Venusian clouds still roll and boil in the void, but there is something else there. Gas creatures, gliding and swooping around the _Genetrix_ , their glowing eyes shining like fireflies. There must be fifty or more, whirling in a circle beneath us.

“They’re taking us up,” Devika breathes.

“Look at that,” the Doctor says in awe. “Good old Wispy.”

“... _trix_ , please respond. _Genetrix_ from Lovell Platform, please advise status.”

Devika and I continue to watch Wispy’s relatives guide the ship away from Venus while Rick toggles the comms. “Lovell Platform from _Genetrix_. We’re fine, status...erm...?” He looks back at us. “What do I say?”

Devika smiles at the Doctor. “Tell them they’d never believe us.”

An hour later, Devika, Rick, the Doctor and I look out from the Lovell’s observation deck. A thick carpet of yellow-orange cloud stretches away in all directions. On the far horizon, a fuzzy red-orange orb is half-submerged in the clouds, light stretching out to highlight the atmosphere in brilliant color. We aren’t as close to Venus as we were in the TARDIS, but to be honest, I can see the sunset better from out here.

I sigh contentedly. “It’s so beautiful. For a moment down on the ship I thought I was going to miss it.”

“I told you we had a couple of hours. Plenty of time,” the Doctor says.

“That’s not what I meant,” I say, shaking my head. “I meant...going to miss it forever. Like if we never made it off of the _Genetrix_.”

The Doctor shoves his hands in his pants pockets and leans his head down to look at me. “Do you think I would have taken you on that ship if I didn’t think I could get you off it?”

I look up at the Doctor. My cheeks flush. “I suppose not.”

He straightens up and nods once. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

Devika walks over to the Doctor and I. “Commander Sanford is speaking to IASA Command on Earth about how we best protect this life form. The, er, _Wispies_ , as Genevieve officially named them.” I smile proudly. Devika looks into the Doctor’s eyes. “We’ll do better, I promise.”

“I’ll be watching, so make sure you do,” the Doctor says. His face is smooth and kind, but his tone is commanding. “You got lucky today. Very lucky.”

“But it was okay in the end, right?” I insist.

“Just. But here’s the thing.” The Doctor turns to face us, his tall frame highlighted against the yellow-orange Venusian cloud and the inky black space above. “Humanity needs to buckle up. You’re expanding, setting off through the stars. I envy you the discovery, but out there...” He gestures out into space with open arms. “Out there, beyond the Solar System, there are even more strange, fantastical, dangerous things to discover.”

The Doctor looks pointedly at each of us in turn. Devika and Rick hang on the Doctor’s every word. “You thought today was scary – you just see what’s waiting out there.” And he grins, takes my arm, and leads me off to the TARDIS.

While I’m happy with our exit, I’m not entirely enthused with the realization I made while watching my Venusian sunset. I feel stupid for not catching it before, but I think I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole time travel-teleport-spaceship-Venus thing to realize that there were two humans inside a spaceship when it was supposed to be 2009. I had just finished thinking about how Earth didn’t have that kind of technology yet, and I didn’t make the connection.

The Doctor holds open the TARDIS door for me. I go inside and spin on my heel, pinning him against the closed door.

“What year is it, really,” I demand. “There’s no way it’s 2009 with humans in spacecraft ‘expanding and setting off through the stars’. We haven’t even made it to Mars yet. So what’s going on?”

The Doctor sighs. “I didn’t know how to explain to you that sometimes the TARDIS can be a little...off with the coordinates. I aimed for 2009, though.”

“How off is off?” I ask with a frown.

“We’re in the 24th century,” the Doctor says matter-of-factly.

I make some sort of a noise between a gasp and a squeal and sink back against the railing. The Doctor walks past me up to the control panel and sets the TARDIS up for another trip through space. I brace myself for the jolting impact.

“Why do you have such an issue with time travel, anyway?” the Doctor asks when the TARDIS is still again.

I go over and sit down on the grates of the console and hang my feet over the edge. The Doctor leans against a ratty cushioned bench seat perched precariously on a single metal post.

“I don’t really have an issue with time travel,” I say honestly.

“Then what?” the Doctor asks, not understanding.

“Well, Doctor, you said I only got one trip and I didn’t want it to be a tease. I figured if we just did one teleport trip somewhere on Earth I could pretend it was just a regular vacation. If we started traveling all over time and space I would never be able to live a normal life again.” I look down at my feet, swing them over the open space. “I was afraid I’d like it too much.” I look back at the Doctor because he hasn’t said anything.

“Why don’t you stay with me, then?” he finally says.

My heart races with anticipation and a small hint of fear. I find myself shaking my head slightly. “I couldn’t impose.”

“You wouldn’t be imposing.”

Part of me really _really_ wants to just jump up and say, _Yes! Yes, Doctor, take me with you!_ But I have to cover all my bases. I can’t run into this blind.

“Why do your companions leave you?” I ask. His face tightens, like he’s just eaten a lemon. Obviously it’s something he’d rather not talk about.

“There have been different reasons...” he starts slowly. “Some got tired of this life and wanted to go home. A few have died. One I actually picked up on a futuristic Earth, and she fell in love with someone from the past and decided to stay with him. You know about Rose already. Martha had feelings for me that I couldn’t reciprocate, so she decided to leave. I had to wipe Donna’s memories of me after one particularly bad adventure, for her safety. And then there was...” The Doctor shoves his hands in his pockets, and with a sigh he lifts his face to the far side of the console room, staring at something I can’t see. “There was Sarah Jane Smith.”

My heart catches in my throat. Had the Doctor actually fallen in love with a companion?

“I could easily call her my best friend. There was...something between us. More than friendship but...I suppose our adventures got in the way of us ever being more.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“Everyone I travel with knows the risks. It’s dangerous, albeit exhilarating, but dangerous all the same. Sarah and I got into a fair share of it, some of it being the worst I’d ever come across. One day I received an urgent message from Gallifrey – the planet of the Time Lords – summoning me home. I couldn’t take Sarah because aliens are not allowed on Gallifrey, but she had already decided to leave.” He sighs heavily.

“When was all this?”

“Oh, well, must have been my third regeneration that we met. She was with me into my fourth. I saw her a few times after she left, but she never asked to come along with me again, and I didn’t offer. I couldn’t put her in harm’s way anymore. I travelled alone for quite a long while after that. Sort of got used to it.”

I bite my lip to bide time. I don’t know what to make of all this. If I go along with the Doctor, and I end up deciding to leave (because it seems like the Doctor has never kicked anyone out of the TARDIS), what will be the reason? Injury? Broken heart? We get separated on an adventure and I’m left on the foreign planet, possibly just lost, or captured, or killed? I suppose that’s the risk I have to take if I really want to experience time and space.

These past two days have changed me so much already. Even if I don’t go with the Doctor now, my life will never be the same. I feel stronger, a little more confident. I’ve fought against aliens and gaseous life forms, traveled in time, helped save a hospital full of people, and a spaceship, watched a sunset in space. Met the most amazing man in the entire universe. I get to my feet and walk over to him.

Gently, I reach out and place my hand on the Doctor’s cheek. He closes his eyes. Back on Earth I couldn’t say hello to someone of the opposite sex. Space gives me some real courage. I hope I’m making the right decision.

“Doctor...” I take in a deep breath and sigh. Quietly, I say, “It seems like you find a new companion when you’re sad and lonely, after your previous companion is gone. But somehow they always leave. If I stay, I’ll live knowing that someday my time will end with you. I don’t think I’ll be strong enough to adjust back to a mundane life. I think...I think I’ve got to call it quits right now.”

The Doctor reaches up and places his hand on top of mine. For a moment I think he’s going to try to change my mind, convince me to stay. He doesn’t. He just takes my hand off of his face and lets it go.

His voice is entirely emotionless when he says, “I’ll take you home, then.”

The Doctor lands the TARDIS in the same alley we departed from. He holds the door open for me again and I step out into the crisp night air. I get the urge to ask if we’re back in February 2008, but I figure I can just go up to my apartment and turn on the TV. We can’t be too far off, though. Hopefully.

I walk halfway down the alley before I notice that the Doctor hangs back by the TARDIS. I half expected him to walk me to my apartment, but now that seems silly somehow. I go back over to him.

“Thank you,” I say. “For everything. The moon, Venus.”

“Anytime,” the Doctor says sincerely.

An awkward silence grows between us. He shoves his hands in his pants pockets. I’m not sure if I should turn and walk away, just like that. I don’t really want to. By the way the Doctor looks at me, brows ever so slightly pulled together, I’d say he doesn’t want me to go, either.

“You’re special, you know,” he says. “Even the TARDIS knows.”

“What?” I give a little incredulous laugh. “How can the TARDIS know?”

“Well, she’s alive, remember?” the Doctor says, patting the blue box lovingly. “The TARDIS likes you. She appreciates that you noticed her on the street when no one else did, especially because the perception filter wasn’t on, which means anyone could have seen us.”

“I’m glad I could help. But really, I’m nothing special.”

The Doctor’s smile fades. “Are you sure you don’t want to come along?”

“No,” I say. “But I can’t go,” I add quickly, before gets his hopes up.

He nods solemnly. “Alright. I’ll take you to your door, if you’ll let me.”

“Sure,” I say.

In front of my apartment we face each other silently. An ache grows in my chest knowing this is the last time I will ever see the Doctor, the beautiful man that changed my world. All my life I dreamed of seeing bigger and better places, and here the Doctor basically handed all that and more to me on a silver platter and I turned it down to save myself from a heartache later on.

Live in the moment. Isn’t that what all of those inspirational people and books say? Why worry about the future when there may not even be a tomorrow? I came very close to dying twice these past two days with the Doctor. I may not even make it to next year.

Am I really making the right decision by turning the Doctor down? I don’t get the chance to answer my question.

“It was nice meeting you, Genevieve Courtois,” the Doctor says. “It’s been quite fun saying your name. I haven’t met many French people along my travels.” He leans in close, as if to tell me a secret. “I’d make a grand exit reciting something in French, but the TARDIS has a circuit that allows instant translation of most languages spoken or written in the universe. You’d just hear English anyway. It’s telepathic.”

I smile. “It was nice meeting you too, Doctor.”

The Doctor pulls me into a tight hug. I wrap my arms around his neck, standing on my tip-toes to reach. He releases me and walks gawkily down the hall, one hand in his pocket, one hand waiving me off in a tiny gesture. I watch him round the corner before I enter my apartment.

Nothing has changed. I was transported to the moon, traveled to the 24th century and back, and nothing changed here on Earth. I shake my head, completely mind-boggled.

The first thing I do is turn on the news. Already I'm a changed woman if I will willingly watch it. I want to see if people are still talking about the hospital ordeal. I know it’s only been a couple of days so it’s still got to have people raving. It’s a commercial though, so I’ll have to wait.

The next thing I do is prep the bathroom for a shower. The last time I bathed was Saturday, the day before I checked into the hospital. I count the days on my fingers. Sunday, hospital. Monday, moon, Tuesday, Venus. And I was seriously sweating on the _Genetrix_. I shudder, thinking about how much I must have smelled when I hugged the Doctor just now.

Abstractly I remember that Saturday was the last time I ate as well. I survived for over three days. That’s a record. It must have been all the adrenaline and space travel.

I run the shower and wait for the hot water. In this building, that could take almost five minutes. In front of the mirror I undress and examine my body. I still look the same. Short, plain, pale. Dark, stringy hair that hangs to my mid-back. Brown eyes. No distinctive features.

Nothing in the news catches my attention. Mostly it’s been entertainment stuff. Then, I hear the news reporter mention something in passing about how fantastic the festivities were bringing in the new year.

I run naked to the small TV. “What?” I yell at the screen, gripping it on both sides. “What?”

The next shot is replays of New Year’s Eve around the globe. Voiceovers of the news reporters commentate about their opinions on certain things that I frankly don’t give a crap about. When I left Earth it was February 18th, 2008. The Doctor brought me back to January 2nd, 2009.

“Oh, shit,” I mutter, leaning back on my heels. “Shit, shit, shit.” A loud metal clanging comes from the bathroom and the water hisses, signaling the temperature change. I get to my feet and head to the bathroom in a daze, my body now on autopilot.

I try not to think about the basically entire year I missed. I’m supposed to relax under the hot spray, breathe in the aroma of my shampoo as a substitute for calming incense. How can I? What happened to my job? Did anyone even notice I was gone? No note, no resignation. Just gone. I’m lucky to have my apartment still, but only because it belonged to my parents and it’s paid off.

I rush through the motions of showering, scrub my body with a loofa as hard as I can, let myself air dry as I yank a brush through my hair. I pull on random clothes from my dresser over my damp body and crawl into bed with my hair still wet. It’s going to look like a rat’s nest when I wake up but I don’t care.

I thought my life was turned upside-down when I met the Doctor. How wrong I was. He put it in a blender and tossed it to the sharks.

The incessant knocking on my door draws me out of my sleep after countless efforts to try to convince myself that it was only part of my dreams. I think with dry humor as I crawl out of bed and drag my feet over to the door that I’ve only gotten a couple hours of sleep in the past year. I unlock the chain and deadbolt just as the knocking stops. I open the door to find the Doctor leaning against the door frame with one arm, his breathing labored.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor pants. “I’m so sorry. I only just found out.”

I cross my arms. “Found out what? That you dumped me back here a year into the future?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I told you the TARDIS has a mind of her own.” I open my mouth to make a sarcastic comment but he holds his hand up to stop me. “Wait. Just listen. Please. Whenever a companion leaves me I try to convince myself that I’m better off alone, that it’s better that way. But it’s not. I want you to come with me.”

“But...” I have a feeling I’m still asleep. I rub my eyes and run my hands through the matted mess of hair, suddenly self-conscious of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pajama bottoms.

“I mean it, Gen. Will you come with me?”

“Doctor,” I groan. The creak of door hinges from down the hall makes me jump a little. “Get in here.” I grab the Doctor’s arm and drag him inside.

We sit down on my old sofa. I tuck my leg under me and the Doctor sits there stiffly, his hands between his knees.

“Can you take me back?” I ask.

The Doctor’s face brightens. “Oh, you liked Venus that much?”

“Doctor, please be serious,” I say. “You can travel in time. Can you take me back to the time we left so I can get on with my life?”

“No,” the Doctor says sadly. “This is now a fixed point in time. You being gone for a year is now part of the timeline. I can’t alter timelines. This has happened before. With Rose.”

“How did that turn out?” I mutter to my knees.

“Well, her mother accused Mickey of murdering her, so for a whole year he was under investigation. I thought I was bringing Rose back twelve hours after we first left. Turned out to be twelve months.”

“The TARDIS must have a thing for years,” I say.

“Or the TARDIS knows when I’ve found a good companion.”

“What, so it ruins their lives so they have no choice but to go with you?”

He shifts his body towards me. “Oh, come on, Genevieve. What have you got to lose? I gave you just a tiny look at what’s out there in the universe. Come with me and I’ll take you on adventures like you wouldn’t believe.”

I press my lips together. “You’ve never had to try this hard before, have you?”

“No. And you’re making it really difficult for me.” The Doctor tries to keep a straight face but a small laugh breaks through.

I take a deep breath and temple my fingers under my chin. The Doctor looks at me expectantly. “I’ll make you a deal,” I say. “I’ll go with you. But you make me co-pilot. I want to learn to fly the TARDIS.”

The Doctor grins deeply, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Oh, I like you.” He extends his hand. I shake it. “You’ve got a deal.”


	4. Voyage of the Damned With a Twist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning once more - this is essentially the Voyage of the Damned episode with my own editing to weave it into Gen's journey with the Doctor. This is the last chapter I've written with the Tenth Doctor. More will come, I just don't know when. I have big plans, though.

I pack a couple of bags and the Doctor helps me carry them down to the TARDIS. Once I made the decision to go, I knew it was the right one. There’s nothing for me to leave behind in San Francisco. No family. No friends. Just an empty apartment and whatever measly remains of food I left rotting in the refrigerator. I could travel with the Doctor for years and when I came back it would be like I’d never left.

The Doctor unlocks the TARDIS door and sets my bags off to the side. While he heads up to the console, I take one last nostalgic glance at the alley, to the sky and the few rooftops of the nearby buildings. I pull the door closed by the lock and find myself thinking, I hope I never have to come back again.

“Okay then, Captain,” I say as I walk up to the console. I gesture to the panels. “Teach me your ways.”

“What, now?” the Doctor says incredulously. “Learning how to fly a TARDIS takes time, years of practice. You want your first lesson in an alley in San Francisco?”

“At least run through the basics,” I say. “The thing looks really intimidating.”

Each of the six panels has a complicated array of buttons and levers and handles and objects and things I have no names for. No two panels are exactly the same, either.

“Alright, then,” the Doctor agrees. “But quickly. Come here.” He ushers me to him, guiding me closer with one arm. “Every panel controls discrete functions. The mechanical panel here has the engine release lever, door release lever, gyroscopic stabilizer, handbrake, and the TARDIS display dials.” He grabs my hand and drags me to the next panel, continuing to talk at full speed. “I’ve got visual scanners, the time rotor handbrake and the space-time throttle here on the helm panel.”

My head nods but his words spin around in my brain as fast as he talks. Gyroscopic stabilizer? Time rotor handbrake? The Doctor pulls me along. “This here is the navigation panel. Simple enough. Has a time and space forward-back control, directional pointer, atom accelerator, and the spatial location input.”

“That looks like a computer keyboard,” I say, pointing to the last item he indicated.

“Well, it is,” the Doctor says. “On to the diagnostic panel!” He gives my arm a hard yank before I can make a sarcastic comment about the name of the keyboard. “Here we have the inertial dampers, the cooling systems and gauges, a Bunsen burner, a water dispenser, and a microphone.”

“This next one here is the communications panel. I’ve got my analogue telephone, digital comm, analogue radio waves detector, monitor, scanner, and voice recorder so I can leave myself memos and such.”

“Why do you need to leave yourself memos?” I ask.

“I’ve got a big brain but I can’t remember everything,” the Doctor says with a goofy grin on his face, tapping his temple. “This last one here is the fabrication panel. I’d consider it the most important panel after navigation, but only because the fabrication dispenser makes sonic screwdrivers – you know how much I like sonic screwdrivers – and it’s got the materialize-dematerialize function, which is the main essence of the TARDIS. It also has the harmonic generator, the time altimeter, and a Heisenberg focusing device. You can call it a Zig-zag plotter if you prefer. Either way, it will stop you from getting thrown into the Time Vortex.”

“The Time Vortex?” I repeat. “Like the in the heart of the TARDIS? How can you get thrown in there?”

“The heart of the TARDIS is an access to the Time Vortex,” the Doctor explains. “The Time Lords built the Vortex. It exists outside of the universe. The Time Vortex, or the Time and Space Vortex, is simply a place where time and space meet, intersecting at an angle determined by non-Euclidean geometry.”

“Simply,” I say with a frenetic huff.

“You’ll pick up on it,” the Doctor says encouragingly.

I nod and run my hand lightly over the buttons on the fabrication panel. The Doctor tilts his head to the side.

“You can see why the trips are so bumpy, then,” he says. “The TARDIS is meant to be controlled by six Time Lords who are symbolically linked to it.” The Doctor leans his shoulder against mine and his head falls back next to my cheek. “There’s just me.” He stands up straight and darts over to the navigation panel.

“You’ve got me now,” I point out.

“Right! So you’re going to man the handbrake.”

“The handbrake?” I say, a clear tone of disapproval in my voice. I’m sure it shows on my face, too.

“Student drivers don’t get the keys to a Ferrari first time ‘round, do they?” the Doctor says. He grabs my hand and places it on the lever. “Handbrake.”

“Fine,” I say grumpily.

“I’ll get the TARDIS into orbit, then I’ll let you keep it stabilized once I know there isn’t an asteroid belt or a planet for you to crash into.” The Doctor smirks and ducks behind the central pillar, which pumps up and down. The engines begin their rhythmic metallic whirring. “Alright, release the handbrake!”

I do so, and the TARDIS give a jolt. Not as big as the others, so I’m able to stay on my feet. The Doctor calls me over to his panel.

“Alright. So these two buttons and these levers here will help you fly the TARDIS. Sort of like driving a car,” the Doctor says. He keeps hold with one hand while indicating the controls with the other.

“So how come the TARDIS would just shake really bad and immediately teleport us to a new place?” I ask.

“Because I told it to,” the Doctor says. “When I have coordinates, the TARDIS can travel through the Vortex in an instant. It really is teleportation. Or, dematerialization and materialization. But if I want to fly it, I can as well. How do you think I park it in tight spaces?”

“Hmm.” I nod. “If you have coordinates for teleportation, why does the TARDIS have such trouble landing exactly where you want it to sometimes?” I warily raise an eyebrow to the ceiling. “No offense or anything.”

“She doesn’t have trouble,” the Doctor scoffs. “I told you, she’s got a mind of her own. The TARDIS is several thousand years old. By now I think she knows what she’s doing.”

“Several thousand?” I repeat incredulously. “That’s...wow, that’s unbelievable. Would that make her a senior citizen?” The panel in front of me suddenly sparks, making me jump. I stare wide-eyed at the Doctor and whisper, “Did she do that?”

He chuckles lightly. “I think she prefers the term ‘Vintage Veteran’.”

“What about you, Doctor? Where do you fall on the age scale?”

The Doctor runs one hand along the back of his neck. “Well, close approximation would be around 900 years.”

My jaw drops, just like in the cartoons. “Really? Damn, that’s one hell of an age gap.” Lucky for him, though, to be almost a whole millennium old and look as good as he does. But that’s because he regenerates. New face, new body. “How old were you when you first regenerated?”

“Ah, let’s see.” The Doctor taps his lip. “Well it must have been during – no, yes! No! Right, I was around 450 years old.”

“Jesus,” I say with exasperation. “Wait, you spent half your life in a single body, and then went through nine more regenerations in the other half? You must be quite careless.” I meant it as a joke, but I think he takes it personally.

The Doctor scowls at me. “I thought you wanted to learn to fly? We’ve been idling all this time.” He gestures to the controls with a hard jab and steps back. “Shift yourself!”

I leap forward quickly and grab the levers, although I’ve got no idea what to do. “What are you doing?” I shout. “You just let them go!”

“You think the TARDIS is going to spin out of control and crash?” The Doctor laughs. He pulls the monitor to face me. It shows nothing but empty black space and sparkling stars. “I think we’re fine.”

I wrinkle my nose and give the lever on the left a slow pull. The TARDIS shifts to the left and I look up at the Doctor with a wide smile. “It worked!”

“Yep,” the Doctor says. He returns my smile and leans back casually against the chair, arms across his chest.

In my excitement I’ve lost all sense of fear or cautiousness. After all, how much damage could I do to the TARDIS in the wide-open galaxy? So I reach over and press one of the buttons, then spin a rolling dial, just to see what happens.

There is an impact against the TARDIS so hard that the Doctor and I are thrown against the railing five feet over. A fog horn blares out, and when I look for the source of the sound I find an actual ship’s bow embedded into the side wall. Pieces of broken metal and wood are scattered around us and dust clouds the air.

“What?” the Doctor exclaims, coughing through the dust. “What??”

“I’m sorry!” I say. I rub the back of my head, which collided with the railing.

A ship’s bell sounds, echoing loudly throughout the control room. The Doctor crawls on all fours over to a lifebuoy half tucked under debris. He picks it up and dusts it off, holds it up in the light. The word _Titanic_ is printed on it in a fancy script.

“What!” the Doctor shouts incredulously.

“Hey, did I time travel?” I ask excitedly.

The Doctor tosses the lifebuoy to the side, crawls over to the console and heaves himself up. He adjusts the controls and winds a circular lever counter-clockwise. As he winds, the TARDIS retreats from the ship’s bow and the walls reform.

“Come on,” he says.

The Doctor opens the TARDIS doors just as the fog horn sounds again. We’re in a small room, barely large enough to fit the TARDIS. The Doctor steps out to explore. I read the board hanging on a corkboard. It’s pinned up with lists of shipping companies and schedules. _Titanic_ is written on the top of the board in the same curly script as the lifebuoy.

“Gen,” the Doctor calls from up ahead. “Look.” He holds open a cherry-wood door for me and we step into another world. A Christmas world.

“To answer your question, yeah, I think you time traveled,” the Doctor says.

The room before us is decorated with ornamented Christmas trees and circular tables with holiday centerpieces. People in Edwardian dress enjoy a buffet or dance while a band in the corner plays a slow version of Jingle Bells. I pat down my leather jacket and feel so underdressed in jeans. At least the Doctor’s in a suit, even if it’s casual.

The Doctor looks down curiously at me before slowly advancing into the banquet hall. Golden-skinned statues of male angels are spread around the room, and one of them moves mechanically as we walk past. I jump and grab the Doctor’s arm. A short, red alien in a dinner jacket waddles in front of us, forcing us to stop in our tracks. The Doctor and I glance at each other again.

Moving statues. Red aliens. The absence of the rocking sensation on the boat. I don’t think I sent the TARDIS _back_ in time to the _Titanic_.

The Doctor guides me over to one of the large, circular glass paned windows and we look outside – out into the vast expanse of blackness.

“Right,” the Doctor says.

An announcer’s voice crackles over the loudspeakers. “Attention all passengers. The _Titanic_ is now in orbit above Sol Three, also known as Earth. Population: Human. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Christmas.”

“Care for a little Christmas celebration?” the Doctor asks me.

“Well, I wouldn’t want pass up the first destination I went to flying the TARDIS,” I say. “But I didn’t exactly pack a ball gown.”

“Not to worry, the TARDIS has a wardrobe,” the Doctor says on our way back to the storage room.

“Is there anything the TARDIS doesn’t have?” I ask. It was meant to be hypothetical, but the Doctor insists on answering after thinking for a moment.

“A bowling alley,” he says.

“Seriously?”

“The powerful and wise race from the planet of Gallifrey didn’t fancy bowling. But they did enjoy underwater hockey.”

“That’s a thing?!”

“Sure. There’s even a separate pool for it.”

“What?! How is there even _one_ pool in the TARDIS? Wait – never mind. I don’t think there’s anything about the TARDIS that would surprise me now.”

“Just you wait,” the Doctor says with a grin. He leads me through the control room to the back hallway, which has changed since I last came here to get the Doctor when we were by Venus. I suppose the inside can rearrange itself, but like I said, not surprising. Basically everything absolutely impossible in the world the Doctor can show me.

The hall makes a sharp turn into a giant library with a swimming pool in the middle. I wonder if this is the regular pool or the hockey pool, and also why it’s in the middle of the library. It’s not like the TARDIS lacks space. At the other end is a small door that leads to a vast room.

We appear at the top of the two-leveled expanse. The same coral pillars that are in the control room are here, supporting the ceiling and extending through the second level all the way to the floor. The room is very open, with a giant circular staircase in the center and racks of clothing around the perimeter. I can’t get over how immensely large the TARDIS is on the inside.

I walk across the ramp over to the clothes. They’re very peculiar, looking more like a costume shop than a wardrobe. I run my hands along a few of the outfits, feeling the coarse, rough fabric. This definitely isn’t Bloomingdales.

“See anything you might like?” the Doctor asks.

I smile weakly. “I might have to look around a bit more.”

“Don’t dally, then!” The Doctor proceeds to slide down the railing to the lower level.

“Oh, please let me find something decent,” I plead quietly, and begin shuffling through the hangers.

I work my way down the staircase, trying not to lose hope. Scattered through the odd bulky coats, Victorian dresses, Viking vests and other oddities are more modern clothes, mostly for females, thank goodness. But what I really need is a gown. A nice dress.

Then, the TARDIS delivers. Literally. A few more steps down a hanger unhooks itself from the rack and falls on the railing. I go and pick it up. It’s a beautiful, single strapped red floor length gown. There’s a dark red belt around the waist that separates the tight material of the torso from the long, flowing folds at the bottom.

“Wow,” I breathe. I’ve never held anything so pretty. I take it down to the second level and look for a place to change.

The Doctor isn’t there, though I thought he would be since I can’t find another exit and he never passed me on the staircase. There are less clothes down here and more accessories. I open the nearest door and find a powder room. I rush inside and change. The gown is a little bit too big but not noticeably so, and unfortunately the bold red just makes my skin look more pale.

The powder room has a vanity table with make-up. I don’t wear make-up, but I figure it’s a special occasion, so why not. I don’t overdo it since not wearing make-up means I also don’t know how to use it, so I leave myself with simple eyeliner, mascara, and red lipstick.

My hair is another challenge altogether. I threw it into a ponytail back at my apartment to hide the mess I’d left it in after my shower. I go to the sink in the adjoining bathroom and practically soak my entire head. I attempt to undo the tangles with my fingers and then twist my hair up into a bun. It’s nothing fancy, but it looks better than it did before.

I find a pair of red velvet heels – of sensible height so as not to trip up and break my ankles – that fit me and head back to the control room to wait for the Doctor. My stomach twists with increasing anxiety with each step and I can’t figure out why I’m nervous. I could just be hungry.

The Doctor is in the control room, dressed in a slick black tuxedo and bow tie, complete with red Converse that match my dress. He turns at the sound of my heels clicking on the grates.

“There you are, thought you’d gotten lost down–” The Doctor stops, and his mouth opens a fraction of an inch. My face gets hot.

“What?” I say self-consciously, leaning against the console.

“You, er...well, you look...very nice,” he manages to say.

“Thank you,” I say quietly. “You look...very nice as well.” Hah. Understatement of the year. He looked absolutely handsome.

We stand there for a moment. I dig the toe of my shoe into the grates, the Doctor clears his throat noisily and rubs the back of his neck.

“Well, shall we?” he says, a little too loudly.

“Yeah,” I say, and take his arm.

Back in the banquet hall the people mingle, dance, eat and drink. A lady singer croons Winter Wonderland with the band. I can’t help but smile, my heart lifting with the air of holiday cheer.

In the reception area we pass a screen in a circular gold frame set into the dark wood-paneled walls. The logo on the screen disappears and a recording of a bald man with a thin mustache advertising his company starts to play.

“Max Capricorn Cruise-liners. The fastest, the farthest, the best. And I should know, because my name is Max.” Max winks, and his gold tooth glints in the light. The screen returns to the logo of the cruise-liner.

“Portentous enough?” I say snidely, and the Doctor gives a short chuckle.

The steward passes in front of us and tips his cap. “Merry Christmas, sir. Miss.”

“Merry Christmas,” the Doctor says. He leads us on through the crowd. We mingle a bit, still arm in arm. While the Doctor talks to a tall, green...thing, I happen to overhear a man talking vehemently on a cell phone.

“It’s not a holiday for me, not while I’ve still got my vone,” he says sharply. “Now do as I say and _sell_.”

I shake my head. Businessmen.

The Doctor gives my arm a tug. “Come on, I want to ask the angels something.”

“What? They’re just statues. Statues that move.” I shudder, thinking of earlier.

“Right, and they move for a reason,” the Doctor says. He releases my arm and goes up to the nearest angel. I stay behind at a decent distance. “Evening. Passenger fifty-seven. Terrible memory. Remind me, you would be?”

The angel shifts its body in a stiff, robotic way, but its face moves as if it were human. “Information: Heavenly Host supplying tourist information.”

“Good. So, tell me, because I’m an idiot, where are we from?”

“Information: the _Titanic_ is en route from the planet Sto in the Cassavalian Belt. The purpose of the cruise is to experience primitive cultures.”

The Doctor looks back at me, his brows furrowed, then turns back to the Host and asks, “ _Titanic_ , huh. Who thought of the name?”

“Information: It was chosen as the most famous vessel of the planet Earth.”

“Did they tell you _why_ it was famous?” the Doctor asks dubiously.

“Information: All designations are chosen by Mister Max Capricorn, president of Max-Max-Max-” The Host starts twitching and its voice pitch rises as it short circuits. The steward rushes over and wedges himself between the Doctor and the Host.

“Oh, bit of a glitch,” the Doctor says, tapping his lip.

“It’s alright, sir, we can handle this,” the steward tells him confidently. He signals over two crew members. They deactivate the Host and carry it away. “Software problem, that’s all. Leave it with us, sir. Merry Christmas.” He walks off muttering, “That’s another one down. What’s going on with these things?”

The Doctor and I glance at each other, then shrug.

“I don’t know how your alien body works, Doctor, but I’m human and I need food to survive,” I say. “I’m gonna hit the buffet. I’m starving.”

“I’ll go with you. That’s not your typical fish and chips over there. You’ve got to be careful with food from other planets.”

“For Tov’s sake, look where you’re going!”

The sound of shattering glass draws our attention. A little ways away, at the corner of the dance floor, the businessman I saw earlier stares down at a small, blonde waitress crouched on the ground trying to scoop broken glass onto a tray.

“This jacket’s a genuine Earth antique,” the man says stiffly, patting down his front.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the waitress says quietly.

“You’ll be sorry when it comes off your wages, sweetheart. Staffed by idiots. No wonder Max Capricorn’s going down the drain.” The man stalks away, dusting off his perfectly fine jacket.

The Doctor leans over to me. “On second thought, head over to the buffet. I’ll meet you there. Just...use your best judgment on the food.” He trots over to the waitress before I have time to protest.

I watch with mild discontent as the Doctor helps the waitress clean up the mess and engage her in light conversation. That’s just the kind of man – person, alien, Time Lord, whatever – he is, he helps people. In situations like these, though, it’s difficult to distinguish the kindness from flirting. I would be extremely flattered if someone as handsome and charming as the Doctor helped me. I mean, he did. He saved my life. But it was different. He wasn’t dressed in a striking tuxedo and we weren’t on a beautiful Christmas cruise.

The Doctor and the waitress walk over to one of the large windows. She leaves the tray of broken glasses on one of the empty tables along the way. A pit falls heavily in my stomach while I watch them, dissolving my hunger. I turn away and head toward the buffet table anyway. If I don’t eat something I’ll end up getting sick. It’s been a few days and I’m surprised I’m still on my feet.

I keep it light with some unsuspicious soup and what I think is a bread roll, and make sure to find myself a seat where I have no view of the Doctor and the blonde waitress. I’ll have enough trouble getting the food to stay down with just the thought of them. I don’t want to have to see them as well.

The more time I spend with the Doctor the more these odd feelings grow inside me. It could be a normal thing to react this way, not that I’d know anything about it since I’m pretty much a novice at social construct and interactions. I want to call it envy. Jealousy, perhaps. It feels like the Doctor just ran off even though I know he was just being nice, courteous.

A waiter circles the room and makes a stop by me. He balances a tray with long-stemmed champagne glasses on the tips of his fingers.

“Champagne, miss?” he asks.

“Why not,” I say, and accept the glass.

I manage to get through half of my soup and all of the bread. I lean back in my chair, sipping champagne, watching the passengers. The only aliens I’ve seen before now have been the Doctor, the Judoon, and the Wispies. The little red man from earlier keeps reappearing now and then. Other than that, most of the passengers look relatively human. Most of them. They look somewhat human, but they aren’t from Earth. Does that make them alien?

The Doctor slides into the empty chair next to me. He startles me and I choke a little on the champagne.

“Oh, sorry,” he says. “How’s the food?”

“It’s alright. I didn’t eat much.” I clear my throat and take another drink. I wish the glass wasn’t almost empty. The more I drink, the less I have to say.

“You should try to eat more, you’re much too thin,” the Doctor teases me.

I snort. “You can talk, spaceman. You’re not exactly on the cover of _Muscle & Fitness_, are you?”

He scoffs with a grin. “Care to dance?”

“Sure.”

We rise from the table and the Doctor offers me his hand. I take it warily. My feelings from earlier need to disappear, and quickly. I can’t let myself get infatuated with the first man – person, alien, Time Lord, whatever – to show me some attention.

Despite all that, dancing with him just sort of sweeps me away into a dream land. Having never danced before, I thought I’d just be two left feet, but with the Doctor’s lead our movements are effortless. At this close proximity for an extended length of time, we often lock glances. At first I’d flush with embarrassment and turn away quickly. Then, slowly, I look a little bit longer each time, getting lost in his centuries-old eyes that seem to reflect multiple hues of a warm brown. We talk very little; when we do, it’s usually a sly comment about another passenger or giddy laughter.

When the song ends some time later, we circle the hall slowly. It’s very large, fitting maybe a hundred round tables with at least ten chairs per table. Not to mention all the decorations, the band, dance floor, reception...

About halfway through the room the Doctor and I pass a table of prestigious looking guests that could pass as human if I didn’t know any better. They laugh and point at two passengers sitting at the next table. A large, light-skinned woman with black hair is dressed in a purple cowboy outfit, and her equally padded but dark-skinned companion in a red suited getup. The Doctor takes my elbow and gently guides me to their table.

“Just ignore them,” the man says to the woman as we sit down.

“Something’s tickled them,” the Doctor says, blending himself right into the setting.

“They told us it was fancy dress,” the woman says. “Very funny, I’m sure.”

I don’t really understand what’s fancy about a cowboy outfit and what looks like a bad Elvis jumpsuit, but I don’t say anything. If humans expanded and adapted to space, I’m sure fashion has too. And there are always people who badly misconstrue style.

“They’re just picking on us because we haven’t paid. We won our tickets in a competition.” The man smiles happily at the woman.

“I had to name the five husbands of Joofie Crystalle in _By the Light of the Asteroid_. Did you ever watch _By the Light of the Asteroid?”_ the woman asks us.

“Is that the one with the twins?” the Doctor asks.

“That’s it!” she says excitedly. “Oh, it’s marvelous.”

“But we’re not good enough for that lot,” the man says in a low voice. “They think we should be in steerage.”

“Well, can’t have that, can we?” the Doctor says with an impish grin.

With his back towards the rude aliens, the Doctor aims his sonic screwdriver under his arm at their table. It buzzes for a quick moment, then the cork on the champagne bottle in the bucket pops out and sprays their expensive clothes with alcohol. They all grunt and scoff at the mess.

“Did you do that?” the woman asks. She sounds appalled, but she’s smiling.

“Maybe,” the Doctor says, smirking.

“We like you,” the woman says, abandoning her dismay.

“We do,” the man agrees. “I’m Morvin Van Hoff. This is my good woman, Foon.”

“Foon. Hello, I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor says. “This is Genevieve.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say.

“And you,” Morvin says.

“Oh, I’m going to need a doctor, time I’ve finished with that buffet,” Foon says. She slides a platter towards us. “Have a buffalo wing. They must be enormous, these buffalo. So many wings.”

I giggle and the Doctor smiles. We each take a wing. I wish I had found these sooner. They’re amazing!

Earth to aliens must be the same as countries on Earth to people that have never visited them before. And I guess it’s going to be the other way around for me now that I’m exploring the great, wide universe with the Doctor. I’m the alien, and I’ll be in their world.

A guide director taps a microphone to life. “Attention please. Shore leave tickets Red Six Seven now activated. Red Six Seven.”

“Red Six Seven. That’s us,” Foon says excitedly as she and Morvin hurriedly gather themselves. “Are you Red Six Seven?”

The Doctor looks at me. “Might as well be.”

“Come on, then.” Morvin heaves himself to his feet. “We’re going to Earth.”

The four of us make our way over to a man in a tweed suit holding up a sign in the reception area. We merge with a crowd of about fifteen people.

“Red Six Seven. Red Six Seven,” the man calls. “This way, fast as you can. Red Six Seven departing shortly.”

Morvin and Foon show the man their tickets and receive two thick, gold bracelets. The Doctor and I are last in line. He steps forward and flashes what looks like a worn out black passport holder. The man glances at it.

“Red Six Seven plus one,” the Doctor says.

“Quickly, sir, please, and take two teleport bracelets if you would,” the man says, handing each of us an identical gold bracelet.

I raise my eyebrows at the Doctor. “What was that?” I fish around in his inner jacket pocket, where he’s returned the black passport holder. I pull it out and open it, but the paper in the clear pocket is blank.

“It’s psychic paper,” he says quietly, taking it back and tucking it away. “Forgot to mention that, sorry. It usually shows the person whatever I want them to see. Really very handy.”

“What do you mean ‘usually’?”

“Well, if the person’s an absolute genius or they’ve got no imagination, it’s not going to work.”

The man in the tweed suit clears his throat to get everyone’s attention. “To repeat, I am Mr. Copper, the ship’s historian, and I shall be taking you to old London town in the country of U.K., ruled over by good King Wenceslas. Now, human beings worship the great god Santa, a creature with fearsome claws, and his wife Mary. And every Christmas Eve, the people of U.K. go to war with the country of Turkey. They then eat the Turkey people for Christmas dinner like savages.”

The Doctor and I exchange extremely confused looks.

“Excuse me,” the Doctor says loudly. “Sorry, sorry, but, er, where did you get all this from?”

“Well, I have a first class degree in Earthonomics,” Mr. Copper says, adjusting his tie uneasily. “Now, stand by.”

The people in the crowd murmur and jump back to reveal the little red alien the Doctor and I saw earlier. He runs through to the front, his tiny arm raised in the air, waiving his ticket. “And me! And me!” he shouts in a squeaky voice. “Red Six Seven!”

“Well, take a bracelet, please, sir,” Mr. Copper says, and hands one to him.

“But Doctor–” I begin. Our group, even if composed of aliens, all look relatively human. The little red guy will stand out like a flamingo in a flock of swans.

“I know,” the Doctor says quietly, then takes a step forward. “But, er, hold on. What was your name?” he asks the little red creature.

“Bannakaffalatta,” he says.

“Okay, Bannakaffalatta,” the Doctor says easily, while I struggle to break the name into syllables for better comprehension. “It’s Christmas Eve down there. Late night shopping, tons of people. He’s like a talking conker. No offense, but you’ll cause a riot because the streets are going to be packed with shoppers and parties and–”

The Doctor’s words are cut off and in less than a split second my body feels like it’s ripped apart and fused together. It wasn’t entirely painful, just agitating. I stagger on my feet and look around. The entire group was just teleported to Earth, to an empty snow-covered shopping street in central London.

“Oh,” the Doctor says quietly.

“Now, spending money,” Mr. Copper announces. “I have a credit card in Earth currency if you want to buy trinkets, or stockings, or the local delicacy, which is known as beef. But don’t stray too far, it could be dangerous. Any day now they start boxing.”

“Very good,” Bannakaffalatta says happily, clapping his hands together.

“Where is everyone?” I ask the Doctor, rubbing my arms in the cold.

“It should be full.” He stares down the street with narrowed eyes. “It should be busy. Something’s wrong.”

“Maybe we’re really far into the future,” I suggest. “And no one comes out on Christmas anymore.”

“It’s a thought,” the Doctor concedes.

I cup my hands near my mouth and blow hot air into them. “It’s so beautiful, though. I’ve never been to London. Never even seen snow, actually. Always wanted to, though.”

“Yes, finally there’s proper snow. But it’s just any old street.” The Doctor takes notice of my hands. “Oh, here.” He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it around my shoulders. I slip my arms into the sleeves.

“Thanks,” I say. My body flushes with heat, and it isn’t from the jacket.

He takes my arm and we start a slow stroll down the street in the light snowfall. I look up and let the snowflakes fall on my face, even sticking out my tongue like they do in the movies. The Doctor laughs at me.

“Now, the pyramids are really beautiful,” he says musingly. “And New Zealand.”

“Oh, I want to go there!” I say excitedly. “That’s where _The Lord of the Rings_ was filmed.”

The Doctor lets out a bark of a laugh. “You’re a nerd.”

I raise my chin and sniff. “No, I’m cultured, and I appreciate the art that created a masterpiece.”

“All right, all right.”

We stroll a little further down. Up ahead there’s a noticeable light between the dark shops. “Someone’s out here,” I say, pointing to a news stand.

“Let’s go have a look, shall we?”

The news stand seems to be the only business open on the entire street. There’s a billboard next to the stand for a newspaper, _The Examiner_ , and the headline reads simply: London Deserted. There’s a Union Jack flag tacked up behind the proprietor of the stand, who is an old, white haired man in a red Christmas sweater and beanie.

“Hello, there,” the Doctor greets him. He walks up to the counter and says in a bewildered voice, “Wilfred?”

The old man, Wilfred, apparently, looks closely at the Doctor, then leans back and laughs heartily. “Doctor! That you?”

“Yeah,” the Doctor says, glancing back at me with an astonished smile. “How’ve you been? How’s Donna?”

“Well...” Wilfred shrugs sadly. I remember the Doctor mentioning he had taken Donna’s memories of him from her.

“This is Genevieve,” the Doctor says, pulling me forward. “Genevieve, Wilfred. Donna’s grandfather.”

“Right, hello,” I say. “The Doctor told me about you. And Donna as well.”

“So, the Doctor’s got you off on his adventures through the stars now, eh?” Wilfred leans over to the Doctor and says, “You didn’t do half bad there, mate.”

I blush and the Doctor gives a small laugh. “Alright, Wilfred. Now, where’s everybody gotten off to?”

“Oh ho! Scared!” Wilfred says.

“Right. Yes,” the Doctor says flatly. “Scared of what?”

“London at Christmas? Not safe, is it.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Well, it’s them, up above,” the old man says, gazing up at the night sky. “Look, Christmas before last we had that big bloody spaceship, everyone standing on a roof. And then last year, that Christmas star electrocuting all over the place, draining the Thames. And this year, Lord knows what.” Wilfred hacks out a cough. He searches around for something, then ends up removing his beanie and coughs into it.

I take the moment to whisper to the Doctor, “Christmas star?” He just shakes his head. I have to remember that there is a lot the Doctor hasn’t told me.

“So, everybody’s scampered. Gone to the country. All except me and Her Majesty.” Wilfred taps his small, portable TV and a news reporter crackles to life through the static: “Her Majesty the Queen has confirmed that she'll be staying in Buckingham Palace throughout the festive season to show the people of London, and the world, that there’s nothing to fear.”

“God bless her,” Wilfred says. “We stand vigil.”

“Well, between you and me, I think her Majesty’s got it right. Far as I know, this year, nothing to worry about.” The Doctor winks at me. “I would know, eh?”

“What year is it?” I ask.

“It’s 2008,” Wilfred says. He doesn’t seem thrown off by the question. “You’ve been out and about for too long, Doctor. You pop in now and then but it’s just not enough. Donna misses you, you know.”

The Doctor scrutinizes Wilfred. “Is that Donna talking or you, Wilf?”

Wilfred purses his lips, struggling to keep his poise. “Alright, Doctor. Things just haven’t been the same since you left. Since Donna came back. Things are just too...quiet.”

The Doctor laughs. “Are you telling me you actually miss everything that happened before? The alien attacks? ATMOS systems?”

“Well, life of an old man gets sort of boring–”

Suddenly, my body rips away from the streets of London and forces together back in the reception area of the cruise in space. I shake my head, trying to clear the stars dancing around in front of my eyes.

“Oi!” the Doctor shouts at Mr. Copper. “I was in mid-conversation!”

“Yes, I’m sorry about that,” Mr. Copper says. “A bit of a problem. If I could have your bracelets...” He walks through the group, collecting the teleport bracelets, as the steward approaches us.

“Apologies, ladies and gentlemen, and Bannakaffalatta,” he says. “We seem to have suffered a slight power fluctuation. If you’d like to return to the festivities, and on behalf of Max Capricorn Cruise-liners, free drinks will be provided.”

The group disperses, but the Doctor, of course, has something else in mind. “What sort of power fluctuation?” he mutters to himself.

“No, Doctor, are we really going to get involved?” I complain. “I’m in a nice dress, we get free drinks. Well, we get a free cruise honestly.”

“You can always stay here and enjoy the party,” the Doctor gibes, walking backwards through the reception and waving his sonic screwdriver at me.

“Of course not!” I say, and run after him.

We go to one of the golden frames with Max Capricorn’s periodic spiel and the Doctor runs the buzzing sonic around the edge, the tip glowing blue. A hinge in the frame clicks and the Doctor opens it like a door, revealing another screen. He uses the sonic to pull up a layout of the ship’s status.

“Hmm...the shields are offline,” the Doctor mutters.

“Is that bad?” I ask.

The Doctor turns around. “I’ll say.”

Through the nearest porthole I see three huge, fiery asteroids hurtling their way through the sky, straight for the cruise. I grab the Doctor’s arm and shake it.

“Fireballs,” I say. “Fireballs in space.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor says, hardly surprised.

“Will we ever get a break?” I groan.

“No,” the Doctor says. “I’m sort of a magnet for this kind of stuff.” He grabs a telecommunication tube next to the frame. “Is that the bridge? I need to talk to the Captain. You’ve got a meteoroid storm coming in west zero by north two.”

The tube is quiet for a moment, then: “Who is this?”

“Never mind that,” the Doctor says hurriedly. “Your shields are down. Check your scanners, Captain. You’ve got meteoroids coming in and no shielding.”

“You have no authorization,” the Captain says. “You will clear the comms at once.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor challenges in an agitated voice. I point out quietly that the steward is on his way over to us with a Host. “Just look starboard!”

“Come with me, sir, miss,” the steward orders.

“No, just listen to me–” the Doctor begins.

The Host grabs the Doctor’s arm and drags him off deck. I follow willingly only to avoid any extra commotion, because if I keep the attention off myself I can warn the passengers about the oncoming danger without the steward noticing me slip away.

And an opportunity presents itself as we approach the small stage. I slow my walk and duck around the steward, then run up onto the stage and grab the microphone from the singer’s hands.

“Everyone, listen to me!” I forgot that my voice becomes louder in the microphone and the speakers whine with feedback. “Ah – sorry. But this is an emergency! Get to the lifeboats, there’s–”

A Host places its hand firmly over my mouth and nose and pulls me back against its stiff form, smothering me. I struggle against the Host’s iron grip, searching more for a bit of oxygen than total release. The Doctor yells out in anger and shoves off his Host, then runs over to the Host suffocating me and breaks off the hand covering my face, but that’s all he’s able to do. I suck in a grateful breath of air as the Host drags me off stage with his remaining hand.

The Doctor picks up the microphone I dropped. “Look out of the windows!” Two more Hosts appear on either side of him and grab his arms. “If you don’t believe me, check the shields yourself!”

Mr. Copper runs up to the steward. “Sir, something seems to have gone wrong. All the teleports have gone down.”

“Not now!” the steward hisses. He motions to the Host and they steer the Doctor and I out of the banquet hall and into the reception area. At this point we’ve gathered a bit of a following, including Bannakaffalatta and the Van Hoff’s, all protesting our capture.

Behind us, a large chunk of molten rock bursts through one of the portal windows. A few people scream, making it hard to hear the overhead computer repeating, “Oxygen membrane holding.”

“Well, at least we won’t get sucked out into space,” I shout mockingly.

The Doctor looks at me with a cynical frown before yelling at the steward again. “The shields are down! We are going to get hit!”

“Oi! Steward!”

I manage a slight turn of my head to see the rude businessman from earlier running after our party, panting slightly. “I’m telling you, the shields are down! The Host said we’re all going to die!”

“Listen to him!” the Doctor hisses through his teeth.

We reach some sort of corridor for crew only, because it’s all metal and wires and devoid of Christmas decorations. We pass by a large control bank just as an outrageous impact tosses us to the left like rag dolls. Everyone screams out in fright as sparks fly and steam hisses from broken pipes due to what I assume is one of the fiery asteroids colliding with the _Titanic_. I barely manage to stay on my feet before another impact jolts the ship, sending the Doctor flying right into me. He grabs my shoulders and pulls me down, one arm around me and another slung around a pole to keep us steady. Seconds later the third asteroid hits before the ship has the time to right itself, and it comes dangerously close to completely rolling over. As one, the Doctor and I swing around the pole and slam into the wall, same as all the others. Then the ship rocks to the right, we end up on the floor, and all is quiet.

The Doctor leaps to his feet and helps me to mine. My pretty dress is now covered in dust and a few tears in the skirt.

“Are you all right?” he asks me.

“Yeah. Nothing broken.”

“No, but you’ve got a small cut here above your eyebrow.” The Doctor and I survey the rest of the group. They’re all more or less okay. “Bad name for a ship,” the Doctor mutters. “Either that, or this suit is really unlucky.”

Max Capricorn’s recorded voice comes out of the overhead comms, broken and repeating itself like the Host when it malfunctioned.

“Er, everyone,” the steward announces a little shakily. “Ladies and gentlemen, Bannakaffalatta, I must apologize on behalf of Max Capricorn Cruise-liners. We seem to have had a small collision.”

“Small?” Morvin huffs incredulously, while the rude businessman growls, “Do you know how much I paid for my ticket?”

“If I could have silence please, ladies and gentlemen,” the steward says. Then, louder and more firm, “Quiet!” A hush falls over us. “Thank you. I’m sure Max Capricorn Cruise-liners will be able to reimburse you for any inconvenience, but first I would point out that we are very much alive.”

Mr. Copper stumbles forward. Morvin steadies him before he hits the floor. The small cut above my eyebrow is nothing compared to the deep gash along the right side of his face.

“She is, after all, a sturdy ship,” the steward continues. “If you all could stay here while I ascertain the exact nature of the situation...” He reaches for the handle of a door hatch and releases it before the Doctor finishes screaming, “Don’t open that!”

His words are drowned out by a sudden loud rush of air that sucks the steward out into space, along with anything that isn’t tied down, including us. I turn back to the pole and hold onto it for dear life and watch the Doctor struggle to a control panel a few feet away. It blinks, in red letters, “Vacuum Breach.” He runs the sonic over it for a good six seconds before there is a small, almost inaudible beep and the words change to a flashing green “Oxygen Shield”. A computerized voice announces, “Oxygen shield stabilized.” Instantly, the pressure in the corridor disperses and everything goes quiet once more.

The Doctor spins around and surveys the group. “Everyone all right? Gen?” I nod. “Foon? Morvin? Mr. Copper? Bannakaffalatta?” There’s an echo of yeses. The Doctor turns to the businessman. “You, what was your name?”

“Rickton Slade.”

“Right. You all right?”

“No thanks to that idiot,” Slade scoffs.

“The steward just died!” I say hotly.

“Then he’s a dead idiot,” Slade responds with a sneer.

I lunge toward him, ready to claw his eyes out. I start, “You ass–” but before I finish cursing at Slade the Doctor yanks me back by my shoulders.

“All right, calm down. All of you!” the Doctor shouts. “Now, I don’t know why the shields were down, but I don’t think it was an accident.”

“Someone deliberately took the shields down when three fiery asteroids were about to crash into the ship?” I say skeptically, but the Doctor’s begrudging stare changes my mind. “Is it always going to be like this? Wherever we go?”

“Yeah, basically.”

We walk over to the nearest viewport. The sight makes me gasp. I would assume the holes those asteroids made in the ship are massive because there are countless bodies and debris floating around in space. Broken tables and chairs, a few Christmas trees, part of the band’s drum set. And then, slowly rotating from the left side of the viewport, is the TARDIS.

I grab the Doctor’s arm. “Oh, god...” The TARDIS is our ticket off this cursed ship, and now it’s space junk, completely unreachable. My breathing quickens. “Doctor, what are we going to do?” I ask frantically. “The TARDIS! It’s gone!”

The Doctor puts his hands on my shoulders and simultaneously gives a squeeze and slight shake. “Gen, listen to me. I _will_ get you out of here, I promise.” I duck my head to hide the shame of my eyes that tear up. The Doctor lifts my chin with his finger. “Look at me. I promise.”

After a few moments of doubt, I nod my head to show I believe him. The Doctor kisses my forehead. “The TARDIS is programmed to lock onto the nearest center of gravity, and that would be the Earth. I’ll find a way to get us there.”

The Doctor dashes off and locates some sort of speaking tube like the one he used earlier. I lean back against a control bank and try to relax while I listen to the Doctor’s conversation.

“Deck 22 to the bridge. Deck 22 to the bridge,” he says. “Is anyone there?”

There isn’t a response for about half a minute, then a male voice, relatively young and shaken, responds. “This is the bridge.”

“Oh hello, sailor. Good to hear you. What’s the situation up there?”

“We’ve got air. The oxygen field is holding. But the Captain...he’s dead. He did it. I watched while he took down the shields. There was nothing I could do.” A muffled sound follows and I think it was a sob. “I tried. I did try.”

“All right, just stay calm. Tell me your name.”

“Midshipman Frame.”

“Nice to meet you, sir. What’s the state of the engines?”

“They’re, er, hold on...” He lets out a yelp of pain.

“Have you been injured?” the Doctor asks.

“I’m all right. Oh, my vot. They’re cycling down.”

“That’s a nuclear storm drive, yes?”

“Yeah.”

“The moment they’re gone we lose orbit.”

“The planet!”

“Oh, yes. If we hit the planet, the nuclear storm explodes and wipes out life on Earth. Midshipman, I need you to fire up the engine containment field and feed it back to the core.” The Doctor is so calm and assertive, as if he’s done this a thousand times. Then I laugh to myself, because he probably has.

“That’s never going to work,” Frame says.

“Trust me. It’ll keep the engines going until I can get to the bridge.” The Doctor cuts the communication and addresses our dirty and anxious group. “First things first. One: we are going to climb through this ship. B – no, two: we’re going to reach the bridge. Three, or C: We’re going to save the _Titanic_. And, coming in a very low four, or D, or that little ‘IV’ in brackets they use in footnotes, why.” His spiel lightens the mood, makes me a little more comfortable because the Doctor can be so lighthearted in a situation so dire. “Right then, follow me.” He beckons to me and turns around.

“Hang on a minute,” Slade says, clearly irritated. “Who put you in charge, and who the hell are you anyway?”

The Doctor turns around slowly. The small trace of brightness that filled his face moments ago is now gone, replaced by a stern, almost fearsome look. He stares down Slade as he says, almost dangerously, “I’m the Doctor. I’m a Time Lord. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I’m 903 years old and I’m the man who’s going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?”

“No...” Slade says defeatedly.

“In that case,” the Doctor says loudly, “Allons-y!”

We follow the Doctor down the rest of the long corridor until we come across a bulkhead door that’s partially crumpled from the bent-in ceiling. The Doctor shakes and twists it until it comes off. He tosses it to the side and it clatters loudly on the floor. Beyond the doorway is a small metal staircase snaking up the edges of the walls. Poles and loose cables and broken pipes provide us with a pretty complicated obstacle course.

“Careful. Follow me,” the Doctor says as he begins to duck and turn and crawl upward through the debris.

I follow, but my gown proves to be a bigger obstacle as it gets snagged on every loose metal thing that I pass. I hitch the skirt up to my thighs. “Do you know how hard it is to do this in a dress?” I complain, making the Doctor laugh.

“Rather ironic, but this is very much in the spirit of Christmas,” Mr. Copper says as he huffs and puffs. “It’s a festival of violence. They say that human beings only survive depending on whether they've been good or bad. It's barbaric.”

I snort so hard it catches in my throat. “What?”

“Actually, that’s not true,” the Doctor says. “Christmas is a time of...of peace and thanksgiving and – oh, what am I on about? My Christmases are always like this. Ah, a Host.” He shifts a bunch of thin posts and unearths a golden angel. It looks a bit battered, but miraculously it also seems to be turned off.

“Those things have the strength of ten men,” Slade says. “If we can mend it, we can use it to clear a path through the rubble.”

I turn around and glare at what I can see of Slade. “Are you serious? Why would we want to _activate_ a Host that’s gone to the dark side?”

“How do you know they’ve gone to the dark side?” Slade jeers.

“Because the Hosts were the ones who manhandled the Doctor and I out of the dance hall!” I shout.

The Doctor lays a hand on my shoulder, as if he anticipated I might try to attack Slade again. “All right, calm down. We can shift this stuff by ourselves.”

We continue to trudge on. Foon and Morvin have a particularly hard time squeezing through different openings in the rubble due to their large size. The Doctor and I round the corner of the second flight of stairs when I hear a distraught shriek from below. We immediately duck back down and see Morvin struggling against the Host, which somehow reactivated.

“It’s alive!” he shouts. “What do we do?”

“Move faster!” Slade yells. He shoves Bannakaffalatta and Mr. Copper up the stairs faster.

“It’s blocked up here,” the Doctor says with a grunt. “I can’t get through any further.”

“So what do we do?” I ask.

“We shift it, somehow.” The Doctor surveys the group. “All right, you – Bannakaffalatta. Look, can I just call you Banna? It’s going to save a lot of time.”

“No,” the little red alien says adamantly. “Bannakaffalatta.”

The Doctor sighs. “All right then, Bannakaffalatta. There’s a gap in the middle up there. See if you can get through.”

“Easy.” Bannakaffalatta worms his way through the hole. “Good.”

The ship gives a powerful shudder that sends rubble and debris all over the place, most of it landing on us.

“This whole thing could come crashing down any minute!” Slade whines.

The Doctor looks down with an irritated look. “Oh, Slade, I forgot. Did you get that message?”

“No.” Slade looks confused. “What message?”

“Shut up!” the Doctor yells. I giggle quietly.

“Bannakaffalatta made it,” the red alien calls in his squeaky voice.

“You next, Gen,” the Doctor says. He offers me a hand and guides me to the opening. “You’re small. You can get through, help–” He sighs in an annoyed way. “– _Bannakaffalatta_ shift whatever’s blocking our way up there.”

It’s rough work, maneuvering through the rubble with high heels and a full length ball gown. The ends have been ripped to shreds from catching on so many sharp edges and pointy things. Finally I make out the thick spikes and red skin of Bannakaffalatta.

“Okay, Doctor,” I say, “We can clear it from this side. Just tell me if it starts moving.” I get a grip on what looks like a long water pipe curved in a U shape. My hands can barely wrap around it. Bannakaffalatta and I give a few hard tugs before the thing gives way, sending us to our backsides. “Just a few more,” I pant.

I grab hold of the next thing in our way and yank on it for a few seconds before I realize that Bannakaffalatta isn’t next to me anymore. He’s crawled up higher, into the beginning of a large room. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Shush,” he says.

I inch my way up to him. “What is it?”

“Can’t say.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Ashamed.”

I make a face because I don’t understand. “Of what?”

“Poor Bannakaffalatta.” He sighs deeply and pulls up his dirty white dress shirt. Underneath, his body is made of some sort of alloy, and a circle of faded blue lights sits over where his heart should be.

“You’re a cyborg?”

“Had accident long ago. Secret.”

“They have problems with cyborgs in outer space? That’s ridiculous!”

“Charge,” he says weakly. He closes his eyes. The faded blue lights blink on and off in a slow, methodical way. “Tell no one.”

“I promise,” I say, and give his hand a small pat.

“What’s going on up there?” the Doctor calls.

“Sorry. Just a few more – hang on,” I call back.

I hear the high pitched buzzing of the sonic screwdriver, followed by an maddened, “Double deadlocked!”

Some large bent piece of metal is the last thing that holds the group back. I yank and tug and pull until it comes loose, sending poles and wires clattering down. “You should be good, Doctor!”

“Quickly, go upstairs!” the Doctor orders the others.

First to emerge is Mr. Copper. From the way his chest leans forward, even on the incline, I’d say the Doctor is shoving the back of him through faster than Mr. Copper can move. Slade makes it through next. Foon struggles through behind him. Now it’s just the Doctor and Morvin left behind. I see them below, struggling with the Host.

“Go on – now!” the Doctor yells at Morvin.

Finally, the Doctor makes his way up, moving backwards to simultaneously fight off the Host, bring down rubble to block said Host, and crawl. When he’s close enough I grab his shoulders and guide him out and to our feet.

“Well,” he says spiffily, dusting off the front of his tuxedo. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“You’re crazy,” I tell him.

“Don’t knock it. Now, I need to check on the bridge. Help me find a comm.”

Along this deck, sparks fly from exposed wires and a few fires burn over broken electrical units. It’s definitely more open, though, save for the thick pipes running the length of the ceiling, making us crouch as we search for a comm. I find one a few feet down, next to a console that reminds me of an ATM machine, and call the Doctor over.

He takes the speaking tube. “Mr. Frame, how’s things?”

“Doctor! I’ve got life signals all over, but they’re going out one by one!”

“What is it? Are they losing air?”

“No. One of them said it’s the Host. Something to do with the Host.”

“Are you safe up there?”

“Er – hang on.” The tube goes quiet for a while. “Um, Doctor, the Host are at the door. I’ve sealed it, but...”

“They’ve been programmed to kill. Why would anyone do that?” The Doctor takes his sonic and waves it over the console. The screen lights up to reveal an interactive 2-D image of the ship. He puts on the reading glasses that I love so much and scrolls through different screens of various parts of the ship.

“That’s not the only problem, Doctor. I had to use a maximum deadlock on the door, which means no one can get in. I’m sealed off. Even if you can fix the _Titanic_ , you can’t get to the bridge.”

“Yeah, right, fine. One problem at a time. What’s on deck thirty-one?”

“Er, that’s down below. It’s nothing, just a Host storage deck.”

“That panel. It’s registering nothing. No power, no heat, no light. One hundred percent shielded. What’s down there?”

“I’ll try intensifying the scanner.”

“Let me know if you find anything. And keep those engines going.” The Doctor sighs heavily as he leans back against the console and runs his fingers through his hair. Then he looks at me, really looks, and there must be something he sees that makes him extend his arm and beckon me over. I wrap my arm around his waist and lean my head on his chest.

“Holding up all right?” he asks me.

“Better than I thought I would. It just feels like the deeper we go into the ship, the closer we get to the belly of the beast.”

“Yeah.” He kisses the top of my head, and the simple action sends shivers through my body. “Come on. Best we keep moving.”

The group advances once more. At the end of the room we come across a bulkhead that the Doctor has to sonic open. When he does, a flush of heat wafts from the area beyond. He ushers us through and closes the bulkhead, locking it with his sonic.

When I step forward I see an absolutely massive empty space in the center of the ship. At the bottom, controlled flames light up the walls with a fiery red tinge. Honestly, it looks like engines down there. Connecting our side of the ship to the other is a narrow, fallen beam.

“Is that the only way across?” Slade asks. He sounds almost scared.

“On the other hand, it’s a way across,” the Doctor points out.

“Those are the engines, right?” I ask the Doctor, pointing down to the flames.

“Nuclear storm drive. As soon as it stops, the _Titanic_ falls.”

“But that thing, it will never take our weight,” Morvin says fearfully.

“You’re going last, mate,” Slade says.

“It’s nitrofin metal. It’s stronger than it looks,” the Doctor says. Is there nothing he doesn’t know?

“All the same, Slade is right,” Morvin says. He walks forward with careful steps to peer over the edge. “Me and Foon should–” With a loud screeching noise, the ledge gives way and he falls, down into the engine furnace. His screams are abruptly cut short. I gasp and my hands fly up to my mouth.

“Morvin!” Foon screams.

“I told you! I told you!” Slade yells.

To my surprise, Mr. Copper pipes up and shouts, “Just shut up! Shut up!” into Slade’s face. Slade looks as shocked as I am.

Foon turns to the Doctor and helplessly grabs hold of his arm. “Bring him back! Can’t you bring him back? Bring him back, Doctor!”

“I can’t.” The look on his face is full of genuine sorrow. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Well, I’m not waiting any longer,” Slade announces. He shoves his way to the edge and steps up onto the beam.

“Careful,” the Doctor warns him. “Take it slow.”

Just as Slade takes another step, the ship lurches. I keep steady on my feet, as do the others, but Slade falls to his knees on the beam and leans precariously to the left. He struggles to right himself.

“Oh, Vot help me,” he mutters.

For some reason, through all the hate I have for the man, his close call with death so soon after Morvin fills me with empathy. “You’re okay,” I call out to him. “One step at a time. Come on, you can do it.” Slade inches forward.

From overhead somewhere, the monotonic voices of the Host chant, “Kill. Kill. Kill.” I jump from fright as something bangs on the bulkhead door behind us. It can only be the Host. The Doctor turns to a keypad panel on the side of the door with his sonic raised. A few seconds of buzzing results in sparks spitting from the electrical unit.

“Deadlocked now,” he says.

“You’re leaving us trapped, wouldn’t you say?” says Mr. Copper.

“Never say trapped. Just...inconveniently circumstanced,” the Doctor offers.

Across the room, Slade waves his hands, shouting, “I’m okay!”

The Doctor looks down at the little alien. “Bannakaffalatta, you go next.”

“Bannakaffalatta small,” he says proudly as he waddles onto the beam at quite a brisk pace.

“Slowly!” I shout.

The banging on the bulkhead gets louder and more frequent, sending my heart on a rampage. We’ve got Host at our backs, a narrow bridge in which a fall would send us to our death, and who knows what beyond the door on the other side.

“Gen, get across right now,” the Doctor orders in a low voice. He takes my arm and guides me to the start of the beam.

“What about you?” I ask worriedly.

“Just do it.” I stare into his eyes, because for all I know this might be my last chance to. He nods determinedly, giving me a tiny bit of courage to start across the bridge. “Mr. Copper, follow her. And Foon, come on. You’ve got to get across right now.” Foon must not have moved because the Doctor continues to egg her on. “Just think. What would Morvin want, eh?”

“He don’t want nothing. He’s dead.”

“Doctor!” Slade shouts. “The door is locked! We need the whirling key thing of yours!”

“I can’t leave her!” the Doctor shouts back.

“She’ll get us killed if we can’t get out!”

I turn back and see the Doctor pull at his hair as he looks between Slade and Foon. He puts his hand on Foon’s cheek. “Mrs. Van Hoff, I am coming back for you. All right?” He heads for the beam. He nods to me, and I nod back. As soon as the Doctor’s weight is added to the bridge, it gives a tremble.

“Too many people!” Bannakaffalatta shouts. He’s almost made it across.

“Oi! Don’t get spiky with me!” the Doctor yells. “Keep going!”

I extend my arms out to the side for balance. The beam continues to tremble from the weight. “It’s going to fall.”

“It’s just settling,” the Doctor says. “Keep going.”

I shuffle along. My shoes are the only sound I hear as I slowly move. My head jerks up. The only sound? “Doctor! They’ve stopped banging!”

“Why would they give up?” the Doctor ruminates. “Where have they gone? Where are the Host?”

“I’m afraid we’ve forgotten the traditions of Christmas,” Mr. Copper says from behind me. I look back and find him staring upward. I follow his gaze and my eyes widen. “That angels have wings!”

The Host gracefully glide down the large space. When they’re nearly level with us, the main Host announces, “Information: Kill.” Following his order, he and the remaining Host remove their halos. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re weapons.

“Arm yourselves, all of you!” the Doctor instructs us.

I find a pipe and a wooden plank few paces ahead. I keep the plank for myself and give Mr. Copper the pipe. He might be able to hold that better. The Doctor has some sort of a long, thin metal block. Satisfactorily armed, we face our opponents. The Host’s halos glow a bright gold before they hurl them towards us. I swing the plank like a bat, but thankfully the Host’s aim is as bad as my hand-eye coordination.

The Host at the other end have better luck. One’s halo slices the Doctor’s upper arm as he rounds on the disc with his block. He yells out in pain, almost dropping his weapon. I try to fight the fear I have for him and focus on the fear I have for myself, because the halo has returned to my Host and it’s charged up and ready to fire.

“Come on!” I yell. “Bring it on!”

This time I clip the halo. It sends a shower of golden sparks over my head as it scrapes the wood. It wasn’t a clean hit, but at least the halo didn’t get me. Mr. Copper struggles with his pipe. He’s old and already weary from the journey. I don’t know how much longer he’ll last.

“Bannakaffalatta stop!” At the other end of the bridge, Bannakaffalatta raises his dirty white dress shirt once more. “Bannakaffalatta proud! Bannakaffalatta cyborg!” A wide blue beam of energy emits from the circle panel above his heart, short circuiting the Host and sends them plummeting down to the engine core. Well, almost all of them. One manages to catch itself on the beam behind the Doctor.

“Electromagnetic pulse took out the robotics,” the Doctor says excitedly. “Oh, Bannakaffalatta, that was brilliant!”

Immediately following his praise, Bannakaffalatta collapses on the ground. I turn to the Doctor and shout, “He’s used up all his power!” I’m very close to the edge of the bridge. I move along as fast as I dare and jump off the edge. With a sigh of relief, I go over to the little alien.

“Did good?” he asks weakly.

“You saved our lives,” I tell him.

He closes his eyes in a way that makes me think he won’t open them again. “Bannakaffalatta happy.” His body goes limp.

“But you can recharge, right? You did earlier.”

“Too late.” Bannakaffalatta lets out a stream of air and then moves no more.

Mr. Copper appears at my side. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.” He removes the plate on the red alien’s chest and takes out a silver cylinder, about six inches long, that comes to a point at the top. “It’s the EMP transmitter. He’d want us to use it. I used to sell these things. If we can recharge it, we can use it as a weapon against the rest of the Host. Bannakaffalatta might have saved us all.”

“Try telling him that,” Slade says. He points to the bridge.

The Host behind the Doctor starts to move. The Doctor notices just in time and backs away.

“Information: Reboot,” the Host says.

“Use the EMP!” Slade shouts.

“It’s dead,” I tell him. “It needs to charge.”

“No, no, no. Hold on!” The Doctor turns to face the Host. “Override loophole. Security protocol ten. Six six six. Er, twenty-one, four, five, nine–”

“What in the world is he doing?” Slade asks.

“Trying to talk his way out of the situation,” I say with a shrug.

“–twelve. I don’t know, forty-two? Er, one!” the Doctor shouts.

The Host takes up its’ robotic stature. “Information: State request.”

“Good, right.” The Doctor turns to us and gives a thumbs-up. Then, to the Host, “You’ve been ordered to kill the survivors, but why?”

“Information: Incorrect.”

“But why do you want to destroy the Earth?”

“Information: No witnesses.”

“But this ship’s going to fall on the Earth and kill everyone!” the Doctor says in an annoyed tone. “The human race have nothing to do with the _Titanic_ , so that contravenes your orders, correct?”

“Information: It is the plan.”

“What plan?”

“Information: Protocol grants you only three questions. These three questions have been used.”

“Well, you could have warned me.”

“Information: Now you will die.” The Host raises its’ glowing halo. The Doctor readies his block, but before the Host has a chance to throw the halo, a lasso falls over it. It’s Foon, whose cowboy outfit seems to pay off.

“You’re coming with me,” she tells the Host. Without hesitation she leaps off the ledge, dragging the Host behind her.

“No!” the Doctor screams.

I stare down into the abyss, now nauseated from the thought of yet another death. The Doctor turns around and angrily stomps his way off the bridge. His face is full of fury when he says, “No more.”

Once he’s unlocked the bulkhead door with his sonic, the Doctor presses on with determination. At the end of the long hall, a wooden door gives access to go multiple directions in the ship. The Doctor turns to those few of us remaining.

“Right. Get yourself up to reception one. Once you’re there, Mr. Copper, you’ve got staff access to the computer. Try to find a way of transmitting an S.O.S. Gen, you take this–” He takes the EMP transmitter from Mr. Copper and hands it to me. “Once it’s powered up, it’ll take out a Host within fifty yards, but then it needs sixty seconds to recharge.” I nod. The Doctor takes out his sonic screwdriver next. He glances at Slade for a moment, and after I vehemently shake my head he hands it to me. “Take this too, then. I’ve preset it. Just hold down that button, it’ll open doors. Do _not_ lose it!”

I don’t feel comfortable taking the sonic because it means the Doctor isn’t coming with us. I haven’t found a way to voice my concern, so I just watch as the Doctor hunts around the area and unearths a first-aid kit, which he takes to Mr. Copper. I hadn’t noticed, but the cut on his face has been bleeding bad.

“Mr. Copper, you’re going to need this. I need you fighting fit.” The Doctor wipes his hands on his jacket and looks around.

“Doctor,” I say. “I won’t let you leave on your own. You can’t go.”

He sighs. “There’s something down on deck thirty-one. I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Fine, then take me with you!”

“I need you here, to guide them.” He nods to the two men. “Please, Gen.”

I grimace as an uneasy feeling grows in my stomach. “What if you meet a Host? You gave me your sonic screwdriver.”

“Well, then I’ll just have some fun,” the Doctor says with a grin.

“Do you remember what happened the last time we split up?” I ask with urgency, hoping to find a reason to stick with him before he leaves. “You ran off and got your blood drained and nearly died.” The Doctor opens his mouth to protest but I hold up a finger. “And it was me that saved your life.”

“Gen,” the Doctor says gently. “Please.” He even looks at me with these sorrowful puppy dog eyes, and I can’t resist.

“Fine.”

Something on the ship, something large, must have exploded because with a thunderous jolt we’re thrown to the ground.

“That can’t be good,” I mutter.

The Doctor crawls to the nearest comm and grabs the tube. “Mr. Frame, you still with us?”

“It’s the engines, sir. Final phase. There’s nothing more I can do...We’ve only got sixteen minutes left.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get there.”

“But the bridge is sealed off.”

“Yeah, yeah, working on it. I’ll get there, Mr. Frame. Somehow.” The Doctor guides me over to the men. “Mr. Copper, look after her. Gen, look after him.” He regards Slade for a moment. “Slade, er, look after yourself.” He looks down at me once more. “I’ll see you again, I promise.”

“Okay,” I say quietly.

The Doctor takes off down a corridor and I lead our small group up a flight of stairs to the right. We come across a locked door, and I do as the Doctor instructed and unlock it with the sonic. Once opened, it reveals three Host.

“Crap!” I gasp.

Slade shakes my shoulder. “Do it! Use the thing!”

“Uh, right.” I fumble with the sonic and the cylinder. The Host begin to advance. Just in time, I point the transmitter at them and the bright blue beam escapes and fries them. They clatter to the ground.

“Excellent!” Mr. Copper says.

“Come on,” I say. “I think we’ve gone too high. We need to find access to the passenger’s area, that way there will be signs leading us to reception.”

We search around the metal halls for a while until we come across a door with an EXIT sign above it. Beyond the door is the plush, decorated corridors of the guest’s rooms we were hoping for. Mr. Copper finds a board with directions to the main hall.

“You were right,” Mr. Copper tells me. “We’re four floors above reception.”

Using the map as a guide, we find the nearest stairwell. I expect to find the condition of the stairs as bad as we had it in the crew’s area, but all we encounter are cracked walls and bent railings. Four flights down we come across the dance hall. The exterior wall is almost entirely missing. Remnants of the décor and chunks of the flaming asteroids litter what remains of the giant room. We make our way through.

Slade opens the door to reception just a crack and peeks out. “Four Host. Maybe two yards out.”

“All right, I’ll run out and blast them,” I say. I check the transmitter to make sure it’s recharged, even though it’s been well over one minute. “We’ll need to seal the room once we’re inside.” Reluctantly, I hand Slade the Doctor’s sonic. “Make the room secure and then bring that back to me _immediately_.”

I place my palm on the door and take a deep breath. “Okay. One...two...three!” I push open the door and it slams back against the wall, drawing the attention of the Host. I charge at them with a pathetic yell and send the blue energy straight through them. Once clear, I signal the others to come into the room.

Mr. Copper and I go over to the computer near the podium he called Red Six Seven from earlier that evening. Wow, that already seems like a lifetime ago. Hard to believe it’s only been a few hours. I hear the buzz of the sonic three separate times before Slade joins us and I take back possession of the screwdriver.

The computer doesn’t look like a computer at all. It’s just one rectangular screen, slanted at a slight angle. There isn’t even a keyboard. I assume it’s a touch-enabled and tap the black screen a few times. Nothing happens. Then, I hang my head back with a groan.

“No power,” I say. “How are we supposed to get that S.O.S. out now?”

“Ask the bridge,” Mr. Copper suggests.

“Good idea.” I take hold of the speaking tube. There’s no button to initiate a comm, so I just start talking. “Uh, bridge? Hello? Bridge?”

“Who’s there?” says Mr. Frame.

“Gen. I’m with the Doctor. Well, sort of. We split up. But anyway. Can you divert power to the computer in reception one so I can get out an S.O.S.?”

“Er, well. I’m using everything I got to keep the engines running.”

“Come on, it can’t take that much power.”

Silence. Then, “Fine. You’ve got three minutes.”

The computer screen lights up. Mr. Copper enters his credentials and a password. I search around, tapping different things. I don’t think the inter-ship comm has access to Earth, so I have no idea what to do. I find a tab labeled ‘Emergency’, so I figure that’s a good start. There’s an option to broadcast to the nearest planet. Perfect. After typing out a swift call for help and sending it off, I turn to the teleport bracelets lined neatly on their shelves.

“I wonder...” I pick one up. The clear, oval panel on the top isn’t glowing like last time. Right, power. I go back to the comm. “Hey bridge? It’s me again.”

“What do you want?”

“One last favor. I need power to the teleport bracelets. Just one.”

“No! The engines aren’t doing so well as it is.”

“Well if there’s a slight chance the engines will fail, using a small amount of power for the teleport bracelet can’t add that much more slight.”

There’s a reluctant moan from Frame’s side. “No, I’m sorry.”

My face gets hot, flushing with anger that I struggle to control. It’s desperate anger, the worst kind, because no matter how mad I get at Frame and the situation, it won’t force him to do what I want.

“Listen, Frame. I need to get to deck thirty-one. I need to find the Doctor. He’s gone down on his own and I can’t just leave him. He’s doing everything he can to save us, and I need to help. We’re a team, he and I. Please.”

Through the tube comes a rush of static, like Frame sighed into it. “Giving you power.”

The oval glows a pretty green-blue. “I need you to keep this on longer than the computer. I don’t know what kind of trouble I’ll get into down there and I’ll need the security.” I strap on the bracelet. “How does it work? Telepathically?”

“Tap the screen. A hologram should pop up. You can type in your destination.”

I do as he says. The hologram is small, but there’s a keyboard and a small space to type. I enter Deck Thirty-One and close the hologram, then look up to see Slade and Mr. Copper staring at me. “Here I go.”

“Good luck,” Mr. Copper says sincerely.

With a deep breath, I close my eyes and press the oval button. Since I can’t see, I only feel my body compress for half a second and then stagger, signaling my arrival on deck thirty-one. Upon opening my eyes my vision catches the orangey-red glow all along the walls, like I saw on that fallen beam bridge. We must be way lower, closer to the engines, because I can feel the heat even from where I stand behind a concrete pillar. 

The Doctor’s voice drifts over to me, so I know I’m in the right place. Another voice follows, and it strangely sounds just like that talking metal frame in the dance hall – Max Capricorn.

“Information: _Titanic_ is still in orbit,” a Host says.

“We should have crashed by now,” Capricorn says. He sounds more irritated than concerned. “The engines are still running! They should have stopped!”

“When they do, the Earth gets roasted,” the Doctor says angrily. “I don’t understand. What’s Earth got to do with it?”

“This interview is terminated.”

I slowly edge away from the pillar, letting one eye out to assess the room before poking my head out altogether. Scattered around are lots of crumbled walls and pipes and such, which is no surprise. But the Doctor faces off with some sort of machine on wheels, sort of like a boxy lawnmower. The only human part I can see is Capricorn’s head, connected to hundreds of wires. Four Host flank them, two on each side.

“No!” the Doctor shouts hastily. “No, no, no, no, no. Hold on.” He turns slightly, hands gripping his hair, eyes widened as he frantically searches for words. “Hold on, hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I can work it out!” The Doctor turns back to Capricorn. “It’s like a task. I’m your apprentice. Just watch me. So, business is failing and you wreck the ship so that makes things even worse. Oh, yes! No. Yes.” The Doctor grips his hair again, just for a moment, before gesturing to Capricorn. “The business isn’t failing, it’s failed. Past tense.”

Begrudgingly, Capricorn responds: “My own board voted me out. Stabbed me in the back.”

“If you had a back,” the Doctor points out with an air of jollity. “So, you scupper the ship, wipe out any survivors just in case anyone’s rumbled you and the board find their shares halved in value.” He inclines his chin just slightly, like when he’s thought of yet another part of his foe’s plan. “Oh, but that’s not enough. No. Because if a Max Capricorn ship hits the Earth, it destroys an entire planet. There’d be outrage back home. Scandal! The business is wiped out.”

“And the whole board thrown in jail for mass murder,” Capricorn finishes with a grin.

“While you sit there, safe inside the impact chamber.”

It seems like the Doctor has reached terrifyingly close to the end of Capricorn’s evil master plan, which means he will run out of things to talk about and then he’ll have to make some sort of power move to defeat Capricorn. Unless...well, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?

Everyone across the way seems distracted enough. I take the chance to dart behind an upright metal beam, then again to some sort of generator box. A few more yards and I’ll be close to the back of the high wall.

“I have men waiting to retrieve me from the ruins,” Capricorn continues, “and enough off-world accounts to retire me to the beaches of Penhaxico Two, where the ladies, so I’m told, are very fond of metal.”

“So that’s your plan,” the Doctor says with an furious scoff. “A retirement plan. Two thousand people on this ship, six billion underneath us, all of them slaughtered, and why? Because Max Capricorn is a loser.”

Capricorn chuckles. “I never lose.”

“You can’t even sink the _Titanic_.”

Still with a smirk on his face, Capricorn rolls forward until his life support machine stops at a short railing. Just beyond the railing the floor has crumbled away, leading to what I assume is a straight drop to the engine core.

“Oh, but I can, Doctor,” Capricorn gloats. “I can cancel the engines from here.” Here must mean his stupid machine, because no one has made a move yet the ship shudders dangerously, as if getting ready to power down. I assess the area one more time, my eyes darting from object to object as I consider in half a second if something or other could be used to help me. That’s when I spot the forklift.

“You can’t do this!” the Doctor shouts.

“Host, hold him,” Capricorn orders in a bored tone. Two Host take the Doctor by the arms. They have him good because he can barely move. “Not so clever now, Doctor. A shame we couldn’t work together. You’re rather good. All that banter yet not a word wasted.”

With the Doctor’s back to me and Capricorn otherwise occupied, I sprint for the forklift and clamber into the seat. My dress catches on a pointy part of the frame and rips a good long piece off. I scan over the controls and find it’s very similar to a forklift from Earth. I press the button to get the battery going.

“Time for me to retire,” Capricorn says. “The _Titanic_ is falling. The sky will burn. Let the Christmas inferno commence!” He turn to look at the Host restraining the Doctor. “Oh,” he says, as if almost startled that the Doctor was still there. “Host. Kill him.”

“Hey, you!” I yell at the top of my lungs. I draw the attention of the Doctor and Capricorn. “Yeah, you, you pathetic half-wit dishwasher! Commence this!” I throw back the gear arm and slam on the gas pedal. The forklift doesn’t go very fast but the impact is enough to get the long metal arms lodged underneath Capricorn’s machine.

“Gen, don’t!” the Doctor shouts. I just grin at him.

The forklift’s wheels roll but they don’t propel me forward. Capricorn has thrown his machine into reverse and our tires fight each other, sending up white smoke as they squeal against the ground.

A Host that isn’t restraining the Doctor removes his halo and throws it in a wide arc towards the forklift. It makes contact with something on the right side, near the front.

“That was the brake line!” the Doctor yells. “Gen, seriously, get out of there!”

So there’s no stopping this thing if I finish what I’m trying to do. Oh, boy. I need a power boost, something to overtake the stupid life machine. I press a few different buttons on the dash, hoping half-heartedly for a nitro boost, and find a small lever with a black ball at the top. The fork part of the forklift! I press the lever up and the engine gives a loud whining protest as it struggles to lift Capricorn’s machine off the ground. I slam on the gas again and we go flying forward at maybe five miles an hour, but it’s still enough to break through the thin railing. We’re almost at the edge, I have no brakes...I guess this is it. I close my eyes as the feeling of weightlessness shoves my heart into my throat.

“Genevieve!” the Doctor screams in anguish.

Falling. Free falling, down, down to my death. So many brushes with death since I met the Doctor. I honestly didn’t think it would end this soon. But it’s for a good cause, right? Like the Doctor said, two thousand people on board and six billion on the planet below.

I picture the Doctor, standing at the console of the TARDIS with a grin on his face, preparing us for yet another destination.

I gasp and open my eyes. “The teleport!” I have mere seconds before I make contact with the fires of the engine. I pull up the hologram. Thankfully Deck Thirty-One is already inputted from earlier. I slam my palm on the button and disappear from the forklift. I reappear on the deck just as the two machines hit the flaming engine core.

I grip my head. “I’ll never get used to telepo– ah!”

The Doctor runs to me and gathers me up in a hug so tight I can barely breathe. He lifts my feet off the ground and swings me around. Once I stand on my own, he takes my face in his hands and stares at me. His face is red and his eyes are watery, as if he’d been screaming and crying at the same time.

“What the bloody hell were you thinking?” he says in a gritty voice. “Driving off the edge like that?”

“I was thinking I was going to save your life,” I say. “Again.”

“I had it under control,” he says unconvincingly.

“He had shut off the engines! The Host were ordered to kill you!” I reach up and try to fix the mess the Doctor’s made of his hair. “I had to do something.”

“Well, thank you, but I don’t want you to go making a habit of putting yourself in danger.” I open my mouth, but he quickly adds, “And I mean more danger than what you come across just by being with me.”

“Occupational hazard, right?”

The Doctor scowls at me and I grin wide. He presses me against his body again and I feel his cheek on my hair. I wrap my arms around him and close my eyes, enjoying the feeling of my face against his chest, of being held. By someone who actually cares.

The ship lurches, reminding us of where we are and the dire situation we’re in. Our next step is to make it to the bridge as soon as possible. I have a feeling the sixteen minutes Frame said we had are long gone.

“Oi.” The Doctor snaps his fingers twice and points to his side. Two Host flank him. He puts his hands on his hips and the Host grip his arms. Then he winks at me. “Grab on.”

“Are you serious? Where are we going?”

“Up!”

I look up. We must be hundreds of feet below the ceiling. I grumble out a, “Humph,” before going to the Doctor. “Where do you want me to hold on to? I could break your neck.”

“My waist then. Come on, no time to lose.”

I wrap my arms around him. My grip tightens as the Host ascend. “Oh, crap.” My arms dig in to the Doctor’s hip bones. “Doctor, do you ever eat? You’re so bony!”

“Oh, stop.”

The ascent seems to take hours. The Host go relatively fast but the space seems endless. I do my best not to look down because I don’t want to see where I’ll end up if my tired arms fail to hold on to the Doctor.

“Nearly there,” he says.

“What are we going to do once we reach the top?” I ask.

“Working on it.”

I look up. The ceiling is mere feet away. It’s broken in places, like it wasn’t sturdy enough to withstand the asteroid hit. “Doctor...” I say worriedly.

“Yeah, we’re just going to go for it.”

I close my eyes, bracing for the inevitable impact. The Host burst through the ceiling first, jolting the Doctor, making it difficult for me to hang on. The Doctor’s upper body gets stuck in the floor. He claws out some floorboards and then helps me shimmy up his body. I latch on to his neck, then the edges of the floor. With the agility I can only dream of, the Doctor lifts himself up out of the hole and then pulls me up after.

“That’s one way to get through a deadlocked door,” I say sarcastically as I stretch out my arms and shoulders. We’re at the bridge all right. Glass encloses the wide front room, allowing a spectacular view of space, and Earth, which we’re on a straight path toward. There’s a genuine old-fashioned wheel at the helm, wooden with many spokes. It looks out of place among the futuristic electrical consoles and computer systems.

“Ah, Midshipman Frame. At last,” the Doctor says brightly.

Frame points at the stuck angels. “But the Host!”

The Doctor shrugs nonchalantly. “Controller dead, they divert to the next highest authority, and that’s me.” He flashes a wide grin.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Frame says. As if to reinforce this, an automated voice announces, “ _Titanic_ failing.”

The Doctor strides confidently to the ship’s wheel and places his hands on two spokes. He turns to Frame and asks, “What’s your first name?”

“Alonso.”

“You’re kidding me.” The smile on the Doctor’s face is so wide it seems like the edges of his mouth touch his ears.

“What?” Frame and I ask together.

“That’s something else I’ve always wanted to say.” He faces the front of the bridge and yells, “Allons-y Alonso!” He then spins the wheel with so much force Alonso and I are thrown off our feet and into whatever was near enough to stop us. Alarms blare at the sudden shift.

“A little warning next time, Doctor!” I shout.

Now the ship is pointing bow-down, soaring so fast into the Earth’s atmosphere that flames erupt in the streamline. Within seconds we’re beyond the cloud line and headed straight for Central London.

“I need the comms!” the Doctor shouts. “Gen, take the wheel, keep it steady.”

The vibrations coming off the wheel are so strong I feel it up my arms and to the top half of my body. I widen my stance to keep a good grip because the ship fights to turn in any direction other than the one we’re going in.

“Oh, hello, yes,” the Doctor says into a speaking tube. “Could you get me Buckingham Palace?”

“What, seriously?” I say.

“Listen to me,” he continues fervently. “Security code seven-seven-one! Get out of there!” He leaps over to me and takes the wheel as the alarms scream and the automated voice repeats, “Engines active. Engines active.”

My heart races faster with every second we plummet towards the ground. The Doctor yanks the wheel back as far as it will go and holds it there, trying to get the ship’s nose up. Alonso and I hold on to a console and all three of us scream as we get closer and closer to the beautiful white palace that may be cinders in just moments.

The ship fights to raise itself out of the direct downward decent. Just as we get so near Buckingham Palace I can see a group of red-garbed guards and a woman in a pink bathrobe – the queen, I assume – the nose of the ship rises enough to soar over the rooftops with a hairs-breadth of space. We rise higher and higher once more.

“Whoo hoo hoo!” the Doctor shouts gleefully.

Alonso and I embrace and laugh with relief. The Doctor continues to steer the ship joyfully, but from the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the way his chest heaves, I’ll say he thought weren’t going to make it for a second.

“How did you get the engines to work?” I ask.

“Used the heat of re-entry to fire up the secondary storm drive,” he says with swift ease. “Unsinkable, that’s me.” He winks.

“We made it,” Alonso says breathlessly, as if he can barely believe it.

“That’s right, mate.” The Doctor gestures to the wheel. “I leave her in your more than capable hands. Take her home.”

While Alonso takes the wheel, the Doctor saunters over to me with his hands in his pockets. We’re both filthy, with sweat and dirt all over our faces and my bare arms. But we laugh, and embrace, and I feel like I can finally breathe.

“We did it!” I squeal. “One more crisis averted. Or two, since I technically saved your life down there.”

“Yeah, well, I saved the Earth,” the Doctor says with mock superiority.

“Hah! And you couldn’t have done so if the Host had killed you!”

“Let’s just call it a draw.” The Doctor tips an invisible hat to Alonso. “Midshipman Frame, it was a pleasure.”

Alonso gives a hysterical chuckle. “I guess it was.”

The Host that carried the Doctor and I to the bridge convert into a battering ram to create a hole next to the deadlocked door. I wave to Alonso as we leave.

“How are we going to get off the ship?” I ask the Doctor. “The TARDIS is somewhere on Earth. We should have jumped off when we were near Buckingham Palace.”

The Doctor snorts. “Come off it. I think the answer is on your wrist.”

We make our way back to reception, using a crew’s route that isn’t as badly damaged as the one we had to endure the first time around. Mr. Copper and Slade wait for us, now lounging on upturned chairs that they made right. Mr. Copper claps when we enter. Slade is just smiles, sort of smugly.

“Oh, that reminds me.” The Doctor turns his palm up and aims it at me.

“Right.” I dig the sonic screwdriver out of the front of my dress, where I had hidden it in between my breasts for safekeeping. The Doctor looks perplexed and amused.

“It’s warm.”

“Thought I’d keep it toasty for you.”

“What now, Doctor?” Mr. Copper asks.

“Well, I assume Midshipman Frame has sent out another S.O.S. He’ll keep the ship steady until a rescue vessel arrives. I suppose this will be quite a story once Max Capricorn is looked into.”

“I said Max Capricorn was falling apart,” Slade says. “Just before the crash, I sold all my shares. Transferred them to his rivals. It’s made me rich! What do you think of that?” Before we can answer, Slade’s phone rings. He takes the call without so much as a thank you for saving his life.

The Doctor and I walk over to the shelves where the teleport bracelets are. He runs his sonic over one, straps it on his wrist, and then activates another one.

“I’ve already got one,” I remind the Doctor, holding out my wrist. He sonics that too until the oval glows blue again.

“I know.” He turns around. “Mr. Copper, I think you deserve one of these.”

“Oh, my...” Mr. Copper puts the bracelet on.

“Ready?” the Doctor asks me.

“Where are we going?”

“The sonic has a lock on the TARDIS signal. I’ve targeted the bracelets to teleport us there.” The Doctor nods to Mr. Copper, then to me. “Here we go.”

We press our teleport buttons at the same time and appear down on Earth in a foot of snow. The TARDIS landed on a bare stretch of land next to the Thames. On the opposite side is civilization. I stare enviously at the bright lights as I rub my arms for warmth.

Mr. Copper squints his eyes to see the distant town. “So...Great Britain is part of Europey, and just across the British Channel, you’ve got Great France and Great Germany.” He nods affirmatively to himself.

“No, no,” I say, trying to hide my laugh. “It’s just France and Germany.”

“Yeah, only Britain is Great,” the Doctor says cheekily.

“Oh, of course,” Mr. Copper says. “And they’re all at war with the continent of Ham Erica.”

The Doctor laughs silently and points at me, mouthing the words, “That’s you.” I frown and kick snow at him, which he half-heartedly dodges.

“Well, they’re not at war yet,” I tell Mr. Copper.

“Eh, could argue that one.” The Doctor gestures across the Thames to the town. “There she is. Good ol’ London. Survive anything.”

“So, I suppose you’ll be off,” Mr. Copper says. “Er, what about me? What am I supposed to do?”

The Doctor sighs and frowns in thought. “Give me that credit card.”

Mr. Copper hands over the card he told the Red Six Seven group could use to buy trinkets when they visited London. “It’s just petty cash. Spending money. It’s all done by computer. I didn’t really know the currency, so I thought a million might cover it.”

If I had a drink, this is when I’d comically spit it out. “A million? _Dollars?”_

“Pounds,” the Doctor corrects me.

“That enough for trinkets?” Mr. Copper asks. He sounds almost worried to have gotten the number wrong.

“Mr. Copper,” the Doctor says slowly. “A million pounds is worth fifty million credits.”

The old man’s jaw drops. “How much?”

“Well, fifty million and fifty-six.”

“I’ve got money,” Mr. Copper says breathlessly. “Oh, my word. Oh, my Vot! Oh, my goodness me. Yee ha!” He shuffles around in a little dance.

“It’s all yours. Planet Earth,” the Doctor says.

“Now, that’s a retirement plan,” I say, and the Doctor concedes with a nod.

“Just be careful, though,” the Doctor tells Mr. Copper. “No interfering. I don’t want any trouble. Just...just have a nice life.”

“But I can have a house. A proper house, with a garden, and a door, and – oh, I can have a kitchen, with chairs, and windows, and plates...”

“Where are you going?” I ask, because Mr. Copper started to skip away.

“Well, I’ve no idea.” Mr. Copper barks out a laugh and waves as he continues on to his new adventure.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Copper,” the Doctor says quietly. He leans back against the TARDIS and stares out at nothing, lost in thought.

I take the moment to kneel down and scoop some snow into a crude ball. The snow is fresh and powdery so it doesn’t stick well, but it will serve my point. I stand up and carefully calculate my aim. The snowball makes contact exactly where I wanted it to – against the side of the Doctor’s head. I burst out laughing.

“Oi!” he shouts. He rubs his head and digs ice out of his ear. “That how you get off? Cheap shots?”

“Wasn’t a cheap shot, Doctor. I hit my mark!”

The Doctor growls teasingly through clenched teeth and swiftly forms snow into a ball. I squeal and duck behind the TARDIS. The snowball catches the corner of the box. I peek my head out and find the Doctor just inches away with another snowball in his hand.

“Ah!” I spin around and sprint away, thinking I’ll just run around the TARDIS and hide inside, but the Doctor is two steps ahead. He went in the opposite direction, so when I return to the front of the TARDIS he’s waiting. He laughs and dumps the snowball on top of my head. “Okay, you got me...”

Pink cheeked and breathless, we lean against the TARDIS doors. I experienced so many emotions in the last few hours that it seems like my body doesn’t know what to do with itself. I feel full of energy and incredibly fatigued. Soaring spirits and a hint of depression. I sigh and stare up at the stars, grateful to be back on Earth instead of a sinking cruise space-ship.

The Doctor slides his arm around my shoulders, gives a small squeeze. “So, where to now? All of time and space to explore. Pick a destination.”

“I’ve got the perfect destination,” I say. “A bedroom.” The Doctor doesn’t respond right away. I look up at him and find him wide-eyed, his face more a shade of red than pink from the chilly air.

“Well, er, I suppose...” He rubs his neck, then runs his hand up the back of his head and over his hair.

I take a step away. “Oh! Oh, god, did you think...?” Overcome with a fit of laughter that leaves me gripping my sides, I struggle for breath. “I meant to sleep! I’m exhausted.” The Doctor’s face slowly fades from astonishment into mild annoyance. “What?”

“You didn’t have to laugh that hard,” he says. “Is the idea that hilarious?”

I frown. “Do you want it to be?”

“Maybe,” the Doctor says. I pull my eyebrows into a deeper frown. “I mean, I don’t know. What?”

“I’d like to go to sleep,” I say.

The Doctor clears his throat loudly. “Right, of course.” He leads me into the TARDIS, up and past the console, and down a hallway at the back. He turns left and opens the first door on the right.

“Oh, wow.” The room is probably the most gorgeous bedroom I’ve ever seen. The bed is huge and inviting, with an intricate, ornate headboard and a thick, luxurious comforter. Fluffy crème colored rugs cover the dark, glistening hard-wood floor at the side of the bed and the center of the room. The furniture matches the style of the headboard, and I can only imagine where in the universe it was made. The best part of all, though, is the far wall. Instead of a wall, there’s a view of the Thames and the sparkling lights of London. “It’s gorgeous.”

“The TARDIS never fails to impress,” the Doctor says proudly.

“How is that possible?” I say, pointing to the wall that I suppose is a window.

“Telepathic projection. Lets you see what’s outside without being outside.” He inspects the dresser and opens the top drawer. “Ah, I see she’s given you clothes.”

“Oh, my bags!” I notice them on the chaise in the corner. “This is better than hotel service.”

The Doctor chuckles lightly. “Bathroom is through there. Have a good night, Miss Courtois.” He gives a shallow bow as he steps backward to the door.

“Wait!” I hurry over to him and kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you, Doctor. For...” I shrug and laugh. “Everything.”

With a warm smile, the Doctor closes my door.

Many years later is the end of time...


	5. Geronimo! (In Progress)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit a wall while writing about the Tenth Doctor and decided to speed things forward to his regeneration into Eleven. So much happens with Gen and Ten between Chapter 4 and the start of whatever chapter this is, but it's all just notes. I found it way easier to write as Eleven than Ten. I don't know why. Anyway, hope you like it, and any and all comments and criticisms are welcome.
> 
> At this point in the story, the Tenth Doctor has fought the Master, fell through the glass, absorbed the radiation, and said his good-byes to his past friendships...

“This should be the last one,” the Doctor says weakly. He leans against the console for support as he makes his way around it. I stay perched on the ratty captain’s chair.

It breaks my heart to see him this way. Each step he takes, each breath, each second, he inches closer to death, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Not even with whatever Time Lord powers remain inside me. He’s been injured too many times for too long, ever since the Master first blasted him with his deadly energy.

The Doctor’s breathing is labored as he passes. He looks at me with weary eyes. I fight the tears building up. I don’t want to make this harder for him.

“Be careful,” I whisper. He places his hand on mine for a brief moment before leaving the TARDIS.

I get up and swing the monitor around the console so I can see it from the chair. I watch the Doctor stagger through the snow. He disappears behind the corner of the building ahead. I sigh, and wait.

Within the span of three days I thought I had lost the Doctor for sure four times. In the junkyard, I was certain the Doctor couldn’t survive whatever energy the Master threw at him. Then not twenty minutes later he was shot in the back. I was able to patch him up but it didn’t help his condition much. When he leaped out of the spaceship and fell hundreds of feet to crash land through the glass dome onto the marble floor of the mansion, I thought for sure he was dead. He took my heart with him when he went on his impromptu sky dive.

When the Time Lords and the Master were gone, I was able to breathe easy because I thought it was all over. Then he had to go and be the hero once more, lock himself in the Immortality Gate to absorb the radiation so Wilfred wouldn’t die. The Doctor walked out but I knew he was not okay. There was no way he could return from all the damage his body had taken. And he contained it all until he could sort his unfinished business. He must be burning inside, postponing his inevitable death and regeneration.

I struggle immensely with the thought of losing the Doctor. I will still have the Doctor, I will still have my husband and the adventures, but I’ll need to learn to love a whole new man. The Doctor and I have been together for eight years. I know every bit of his personality, how every inch of his skin feels. I know all freckles, all his scars. It’s this face, this body, this man that I fell in love with, and soon I will never see him again. 

The ring on my finger feels heavy all of a sudden. The crystal shines its beautiful clear cerulean, always sparkling as if the sun constantly shines on it. I work the band loose and spin it around my finger idly, staring off at nothing. My vision blurs and my mind goes numb.

I sense the Doctor’s return before I notice him on the monitor. He reappears from behind the building, clutching his stomach, walking slower than he had been before, as if every step is agony. About halfway between the building and the TARDIS, he stumbles and drops to his knees. His outstretched arms prevent him from falling face first into the ground.

I leap off the chair, sprint down the ramp, burst through the TARDIS doors and run over to the Doctor. My momentum is too great to stop; I slide on my knees through the snow and end by the Doctor’s side.

“Doctor,” I say worriedly. I extend my arm across his chest and pull him upright. He breathes hard and shallow, bracing himself with his hands on his knees. I hold his shoulders. “We need to get you back to the TARDIS. Can you stand?”

“Just give me a moment.” He closes his eyes and tries to breathe slower. I rub his back slowly, gently. It’s all I can do.

My mind, twisted and stressed with worry, gradually calms as a beautifully sorrowful song flows through it. A chorus of harmonizing voices devoid of words, full of a passion that’s almost heartbreaking, brings tears to my eyes, not only because of the mournful tune, but because I recognize the sound. Standing some yards away is an Ood, translation sphere in hand. He watches us with gentle eyes set into his ever peaceful face. No matter how calm and kind he appears, it doesn’t keep my heart from racing or stop the defensive, protective manner I have over the Doctor.

“Doctor, it’s the Ood,” I say. I clutch him tighter to my body as if the mere presence of the Ood will take him away from me. “It’s Sigma Ood.”

The Doctor turns his head slowly. The sphere in Sigma Ood’s hand glows yellow, an indication of the telepathic connection.

“We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep. This song is ending, but the story never ends.”

I choke back a sob. “Doctor, we need to get you inside. Come on.” I heave the Doctor to his feet. He leans all of his weight against me as I guide him, step by slow step, back to the TARDIS.

We make it to the console. The Doctor rests back against it, slumped to one side while his arm still grips his stomach. His breathing is more labored and his eyes are red and watery.

“I can’t hold it in any longer,” he say through a strained voice.

As much as my heart wants him to stay just a little while longer, I can’t be selfish. I stroke his cheek softly. “It’s alright,” I say soothingly. “I’m right here with you. It’s okay.”

“No,” he says. “No, you need to go. I’ve held all the radiation in for too long.” He gasps and clenches his teeth through a spasm of pain. “The regeneration energy...its growing more powerful. I can’t...you can’t...”

I grip his shoulders, grab the lapels of his suit jacket so tightly it makes my hands hurt, take his face in my hands all within moments because I so desperately don’t know what to do. “I won’t leave you,” I tell him through a choked sob. “Not ever.”

“Gen.” The Doctor sighs. “Please. If I ever needed you to listen, to not argue, it’s now.”

“But–”

“Please,” he says again. He pleads with his eyes, his face, trying to convey his insistency with just a look. “You’ll get hurt. I can’t control it.”

Tears pour uncontrollably from my eyes. The Doctor blurs and waves behind the sheen of water. I press my forehead against his chest and sob, soaking his jacket. “I’m not leaving you,” I insist, but not as strongly. I know I have to step away. I know I have to go.

The Doctor lifts my chin with his finger. Streams of wetness shine on his face. He brushes tears off my cheek with his thumb, and he gets this intense, despairing look before he pulls me close and kisses me. I cling to him as tight as I can as our kiss gets deeper and deeper. I relish the taste of him, the saltiness of the tears, the pressure of his lips that I remember thinking were quite thin the first time we kissed but are now perfect to me. My fingers feel the soft skin at the back of his neck, trail up through his thick, soft hair. I try to memorize everything I can as quickly as I can.

The Doctor pulls away gently and rests his forehead against mine. “I love you.”

“And I you.”

He steps back slowly. I do the same until we’re on opposite sides of the console dock. This is it. This is the end of his time. The end of our time. I wrap my arms tightly over my chest, as if that will keep me composed as the Doctor meets my eyes once more and whispers in the most tragic way, “I don’t want to go.”

The Doctor’s head whips back and his arms fly straight out simultaneously. Bright, potent golden beams of energy rush from his hands and face with such force that it whirls my hair and sends me stumbling back against the railing. I shield my eyes against the glare and cringe when the energy collides with the walls of the TARDIS with a huge _boom_. The entire thing shakes as the energy pours from the Doctor with increasing intensity, ripping through structures, starting fires, tearing apart the console, sending rubble everywhere.

Something cracks loudly above me. It turns out to be one of the coral pillars detaching from the ceiling. I leap to the side and end up rolling a few times until the back of my head slams against the railing. The pillar crashes down and breaks into pieces where I was just moments ago. Smoke from the fires thicken and get caught in my throat. I can’t see the Doctor anymore. I can’t see anything, really, because the impact on my head has done something to my vision. But I can tell the Doctor’s energy output has ceased.

The TARDIS shudders and vibrates with power that doesn’t stop. I have a feeling it’s gone airborne when it lurches to the side with such force it sends me flying to the back wall. I lay crumpled on the floor, my body aching. My fingers stretch out and feel the dirt and muck on the ground.

Destroyed. That’s the word that floats in my bashed around head. The TARDIS is being destroyed from the inside, just as the Doctor is. I rest my cheek on the ground and close my eyes, listen to the thundering of the TARDIS as it’s ripped apart.

I hear a yell from the other side of the console. I raise my head slightly and see, through blurred vision, a tall, gangly man sway to the side and lift one leg to his chest, feeling his thigh.

“Legs. I’ve still got legs. Good.” He runs his hands up and down his arms and then rubs his hands together. “Arms. Hands. Ooh, fingers.” He wiggles his fingers in front of his face. “Lots of fingers.” His hands fly to the sides of his head. “Ears, yes. Eyes, two.” He presses two fingers around his nose and then down his face. “Nose, I’ve had worse. Chin, blimey! Hair.” He grips long brown hair and his eyes widen. “I’m a girl! No, no–” He jiggles his hips around. “Definitely not a girl.” He pulls a long fringe of hair down over his eyes. “And still not ginger!”

“Doctor?” I say weakly. I feel my mind slipping away, my body throbbing from being thrown around. A pain pounds my skull from where debris smashed into it.

“And something else,” the new Doctor says contemplatively. “Something important...I’m...I’m–” Another loud boom reverberates from somewhere deep inside the TARDIS. “Ha! Crashing!” He flips switches and levers on what remains of the console.

The TARDIS tumbles and I become airborne. The last thing I hear is the Doctor laugh delightfully, as if this was some sort of ride at a theme park, shouting, “Whoo hoo hoo! Geronimo!” before I smash into a wall at the end of the hallway and black out.

What is time? Is time an illusion? To mortals, time is the passage of the sun and seasons, the progressive wrinkling of skin for ageing – irreversible markers of a present that is moving forwards, and a future that is ineluctably becoming the past. But time is relative, time is flexible. Time can be manipulated by an outside force, a living being, making it possible to move between different points in time.

Space. The ever-reaching expanse, the never-ending location of emptiness. How big is space, really? How many asteroids, moons, planets, stars, solar systems and galaxies are there? Space makes up a universe. Is there more than one universe?

Spacetime. Any event that occurs in the universe has to involve both space and time. Gravity doesn’t just pull on space, it also pulls on time. Spacetime can be curved in the presence of mass and ridden to those different points in time. It’s the unification of time and space as a four-dimensional continuum. Three dimensions of space and one of time. The concept that allows time and space travel. How did this concept come to be?

My ancestors. My very distant ancestors are the answer. The Time Lords created the Space-Time Vortex, a trans-dimensional spiral that connects all points in space and time to allow travel between them. The Time Vortex exists outside of any normal frame of reference. Within it, light, darkness, matter and energy all blend, divide, shift and change. It underlies the whole of creation, touching the normal universe only slightly. Its pathways are twisted, unstable and hard to follow.

A journey through these strange dimensions might take a moment and carry a traveler a million years and a billion light years from their origin. Alternatively, a journey of months in the Vortex might end in a shift of six feet and ten days in conventional space. Without being able to calculate the pathways, there is simply no telling.

Millions of years of exposure to the Time Vortex was, in part, responsible for some Gallifreyans becoming Time Lords. Time Lords are genetically different from a natural born Gallifreyan, with a third strand of DNA (a triple helix instead of a double helix). While some would say ‘Time Lord’ is a title given to those that master the Academy, the presence of altered DNA renders the abilities of a Time Lord to be passed on through generations.

In order to control the journey through the dimensions of the Time Vortex, a space-time vessel is needed, hence the creation of TARDISes. How the TARDISes harness the ability to travel along the Time Vortex involved creating a source of power – the Eye of Harmony. The Eye was created by suspending time around an exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur. That source also became the same energy to power the civilization of Gallifrey.

The TARDISes, fueled by access to the Eye of Harmony within their consoles, are able to navigate the Time Vortex through Time Lords, allowing space and time travel. However, TARDISes are grown, not built. They are sentient and living beings, with personalities of their own. They possess the ability to manipulate their exterior, their surroundings, their insides.

So, where does that leave me?

I was knocked out in the TARDIS, that I know. Now, I can only guess where I am. I feel trapped in time, weightless. I can’t see, I can’t feel. I don’t need to breathe. At first I thought I was dead, until my mind started to open wider and wider and I was drowned out in a bright yellow light.

Then the TARDIS spoke to me. Not in words. More like impressions. When the Doctor’s regeneration power decimated the inside of the TARDIS, the heart of the TARDIS was released through the broken console and took me in. I am suspended in the Eye of Harmony, protected by the Time Vortex, the “no-time” and “no-space”, while the Doctor regenerates and the TARDIS rebuilds itself.

With no concept of time or space, I am nothing, trapped in the nothingness. I don’t exist because I am in a place that doesn’t really exist. The Time Vortex infiltrated my mind, though, and I begin to learn anything and everything about the universe. The longer I stay here the more I learn.

Humans aren’t meant to be within the Time Vortex unprotected; my mind slowly burns, like a fire was started in the depths of my thoughts and the heat is slowly building. But I am part Gallifreyan. I am part Time Lord. And I’m coming into my heritage.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I don’t feel the passing of time. It could be eight days, eight hours, eight years. But, suspended in the nothingness, I am unchanged.

Then there’s a moment when things stir. The colorlessness and emptiness of the Time Vortex glows. Sensations flood my body, my touch and sense of smell return. I have my vision, but behind my closed eyelids is a blinding light, and my better sense tell me to keep my eyes closed. My body shifts and I feel like I float forward, wherever forward is.

The light behind my eyelids decreases in intensity as I reach a point where oxygen floods over me. I gasp in a long, ragged breath. I don’t know how long it’s been since I last breathed. I float upward now, like a classic vampire rising from a coffin, and once I stop I am no longer blinded behind closed eyes. I am not yet on solid ground; I bob up and down a few inches above the floor.

“Gen?” someone whispers incredulously. A voice I’ve heard once before, but one that means nothing to me.

I open my eyes slowly. Swirled in the glow of the Eye of Harmony, the heart of the TARDIS took me back to the console room. It lowers me gently onto my feet, but my muscles are weak from weightlessness and I stumble forward, only to be caught by the man standing before me.

“Blimey,” he whispers again. He turns around guides me to a chair, which I ungracefully plop down into. The man kneels in front of me and pushes a bit of my hair behind my ear. I’m too disoriented to figure out if the action bothers me or not. “Are you alright?”

I blink a bunch of times until my vision adjusts to the deep orange glow of the room. It seems so familiar yet so much has changed. I remember a mechanical ocean...now it feels like the inside of a mechanical volcano. And it’s bigger. The console is the same size but the room itself is massive.

“Redecorated,” I say sluggishly, with a weary nod to the room.

“Ah, new me, new TARDIS. She was due for an upgrade anyway.”

I can’t get used to the voice. It’s younger, more cheerful. The Doctor tilts his head to the side to try to catch my attention, since I avoid looking directly at him, but I just turn my head away a little bit further. I’m not sure if I’m ready to see him yet.

“I tried to get you out,” he says earnestly. “After we crashed, the TARDIS locked me out while she changed. Once she was done, I searched all over for you. I did scans of the entire inside for life forms, heat signatures, but nothing came up. I feared the worst, then. I thought you might have died inside the TARDIS and there would be no way for me to find you. Then I thought of scanning for flesh, for cold signatures, for...for signs of decay. Still nothing.”

He speaks as if he thinks I think he left me or forgot about me after his regeneration. I never thought that, and I never will. I hang my head and stare at my hands on my lap, where the Doctor has entwined his own. It just feels like a stranger is in front of me.

“Once my regeneration was complete, the TARDIS showed me where you really were,” he goes on. “As soon as I saw, I knew why she kept it from me. The TARDIS knew I’d do anything to open the Eye of Harmony and get you out. If I had still been regenerating and gone into the Time Vortex, I could have been disintegrated into time itself and disappeared forever. The TARDIS was protecting me, and you.”

“I didn’t think you abandoned me,” I say. My voice is strained, like I’ve been screaming for an hour straight. “I knew you would never do that on purpose.”

The Doctor reaches out to place the tips of his fingers on my cheek. My eyes well with tears. He turns my head towards him despite my half-hearted attempt to keep away but I focus on his chin instead of his entire face. He’s got a little dimple in the middle of it. “Then what’s wrong, Gen?” He truly sounds hurt. “Why won’t you look at me?”

Well, it’s got to happen sometime. Might as well be now. Slowly, I lift my eyes. His mouth is nice, lips aren’t too thin. Then, instead of taking in his features bit by bit, I’m caught in his gaze and my heart skips a beat. He strikes me as handsomely charming in a boyish way. His eyes are different this time. A subtle sea-green, but still centuries old. He’s got kind of a long face, amazing cheekbones, and a high forehead covered by a curve of brown hair parted at the far left. With the concern written on his face and sorrow in his eyes, he looks absolutely irresistible.

I hate him.

“I need to lie down or something,” I say. I stand up too fast and grip my head from the rush of blood. I manage to take a few steps forward.

“Wait,” the Doctor says. He gets to his feet and makes a grab for my left wrist, but even with the lightest of pulls it sends a searing pain up my arm.

“Ow – stop!” I yank my arm back and cradle it against my chest with a glare. The Doctor’s demeanor changes in the blink of an eye. One moment he shows genuine concern, the next it looks like I offended him, like he was a puppy that I didn’t let follow me home.

“Er, we should get you to the sick bay,” he says meekly while he wrings his hands together. “Not only for your arm, though. I don’t know what extended time in the Vortex without a vessel does do a person.”

“Okay.” I do a quick scan around the room. There’s three levels this time, and four stair cases, each backlit with turquoise light. One staircase leads down to the front doors. The other three lead to corridors that go god knows where. The Doctor senses my hesitation.

“This way,” he says, and gestures me to the nearest staircase.

The corridors of the TARDIS are hexagonal in shape and quite a lot darker than I remember. Hexagonal portal lights glow green along the walls, adding to the eerie aura.

“Bit dark,” the Doctor comments. “Might need to have a talk with the old girl, see if she can brighten it up.”

I don’t respond. Beside me, I sense the Doctor glance down, but he doesn’t say anything. I know he doesn’t deserve the way I’ve treated him these past ten minutes, but I can’t help the way I feel. Almost like I’m betraying my other Doctor.

“Ah, here we are.” His voice gradually grows cheerier when he speaks, like it’s a habit and he does it subconsciously despite the tension between him and I.

The Doctor presses a large, circular blue button – the color reminds me of my other Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and I feel my stomach lurch – on the side of a door and it slides to the left with a hiss. Inside is considerably brighter, with light gray flooring and white walls. At the far side of the room is a sort of thin rectangular padded table, like a medical bed, that I assume retracts into the long clear dome behind it. Two large control banks flank the bed, with screens and buttons and dials and a pull out keyboard.

“Come on, up you go,” the Doctor says when we reach the table. I hop up on my butt, then swing my legs over and lie down on my back, hands at my sides. The Doctor turns to the console on the left side and presses and types things. “This won’t hurt. It’s just the scan. If the computer instructs me to do something more I’ll let you know.” He smiles at me, with his eyebrows slightly pulled in. I try to clear any emotion from my face and at least show him a neutral look instead of a hostile one. “Just lie still.” He presses a button and the table slides silently into the dome.

Once stopped, the dome frosts over so I can’t see out. I close my eyes and breathe evenly while the hum of the machine does its work. Yet again, I’m left with my thoughts.

My Doctor told me once that when he regenerates, he gets a new body, a new personality, but retains everything from the past as memories. Am I just a memory to this Doctor? How do I love a new man who might only love me in his memories?

Three musical beeps signal the end of the scan. The dome becomes transparent again and the table slides out. The Doctor helps me sit up.

“Vital signs and chemical make-up pass with flying colors,” he says. He taps on one screen, showing lots of numbers. “Physical properties get a bit of a ding, what with that gash on your forehead, a slight concussion, and your wrist. Tiny hairline fracture on your distal radius, heals in about six weeks. But with the state of your calcium and iron levels, I’d expect your arm to be fully functional in three.” He grins and taps my head lightly. “Can’t say much for the concussion though. You might have lost a few irreversible IQ points.” He chuckles a bit, but it fades when I don’t respond to his joke. He’s trying so hard, but I just can’t.

I didn’t know I had a cut on my forehead. I reach up and feel the dried blood above my right eyebrow and follow it down to my temple. At the touch it feels itchy, so I habitually scratch at it, revealing fresh warm blood.

“Don’t scrape it off,” he scolds me. “Come over here. I’ll fix you up.”

To the right of the scanning chamber, cabinets and drawers cover the walls, extending all the way to the door. There’s a sink in the middle flanked by counter space. The Doctor takes two folding chairs from a closet on the opposite side of the room and sets them up by the sink. He then pulls out medical supplies – antibiotic cream, alcohol pads, scissors, a few plain towels – and some sort of thin metal brace and a sling.

We sit across from each other and he tends to my wrist first. The outside of the brace is metal but the inside is cushioned with some sort of foamy material. He then helps me into the sling. As he wraps the strap around my neck and Velcro’s it together, his face gets incredibly close to mine. We lock gazes and the moment seems to grow with electricity at this close proximity. If he were to lean just a few inches forward, his lips would get closer...

I sit up straight and clear my throat, severing the electricity. My heart races and I don’t know why. Maybe there’s a part of me that instinctually knows that this man is my Doctor, too, and that’s okay somehow. But I just don’t know for sure.

The Doctor wets a towel and wipes away the dried blood. Some of it managed to reach my chin before it dried. It’s slow work because dried blood is incredibly tough. For the most part he stares intensely at the spot he scrubs, with a bit of his tongue poking out the side of his mouth and his brows pulled down a bit. I find myself watching him, until he looks at me, sees me looking at him, and then we both turn away in embarrassment. My face gets hot every time it happens, and it happens quite a few times.

Once the dried blood is gone, he sets the coppery-brown stained towel aside and opens an alcohol pad. I purse my lips in disgust.

“I know, I’m sorry,” the Doctor says. “It’ll burn, but I need to clean it.”

“Proceed,” I order lightly with a wave of my good hand. The Doctor smiles, his face brightening as if my small attempt at humor made him really happy. It just makes the guilt I have increase.

As soon as the alcohol pad touches my exposed skin I wince and pull back. I take a deep breath and nod for him to continue. The Doctor dabs at the cut as light as he can but it still burns. Once it’s dry he slathers on a thick layer of ointment.

“I guess you’re truly living up to your name right now,” I say. At his quizzical look I acknowledge the large band-aid he’s about to stick on my forehead. “You know, ‘The Doctor’.”

He laughs with the biggest grin on his face. “Ah, you speak. It’s good to hear your voice again. Making jokes.” He flattens the adhesive against my skin, then sits back in his chair with his eyes locked on mine. “You’re looking at me different now. Not so unfriendly.”

I duck my head in shame. “Sorry. I don’t know what it is. I guess I’m just trying to get used to your face.”

“You don’t seem to care for it very much.”

“It’s not that. It’s just new.”

“But how’s the quality?” He shifts himself straighter and slicks back the hair covering his forehead in a swoop. “It’s a good face, yeah?” He wiggles his eyebrows seductively.

I raise my good hand in a gesture of defeat. “All right, yeah. It’s a good face. I like it.”

“And...? How’s the rest?”

I regard him for a moment. “Well, you’re still gangly, skinny and tall.” The Doctor frowns. “But you’ve got great hair. Again.” He smiles approvingly. My eyes travel down to his attire, which I notice for the first time. I grimace. “What’s with your clothes? You look like my grandfather.”

“I don’t quite care for your cruel appraisal.” The Doctor glares and straightens the lapels of his brown tweed jacket, complete with leather patches at the elbows. His blue pants look like highwaters that meet his ankle-high black boots. His suspenders and bow tie are of the same blue hue. Wait–

“Bow tie?” I say incredulously.

“Oi,” the Doctor says with a scowl. He adjusts the tie possessively. “Yes, I wear a bow tie now. Bow ties are cool.”

“I suppose it adds to your boyish charm,” I admit.

“Who are you calling boyish?” he asks, frowning.

“You! You look like you’re twelve!”

Still with a frown, the Doctor gets to his feet and leans in close to the mirror above the sink. He slicks back his hair again and nods with approval. He sits back down, crosses a foot over his knee and says firmly, “No, I don’t.”

I huff out air through my nose. “I’ll settle at twenty.”

“Twenty-five,” he says immediately.

“Okay, fine.”

The longer we stare at each other, the more I feel like reaching out to feel his skin. My Doctor is gone forever, but I was in love. I grew accustomed to having someone near, to constantly touch and hold and kiss. I yearn for the contact, but would it be right to give in to this new form so quickly?

I scoot to the edge of my chair. The Doctor lowers his leg and sits forward, as if my action propelled his. Slowly, I extend my good arm. He stays perfectly still, a calm, gentleness to his face that draws me in. My fingers reach his cheek. I run them over his fine cheekbone to tuck his hair behind his ear, then I rest my palm on the side of his face, much like I had done to my other Doctor moments before we parted. He closes his eyes in a way that makes me think he hasn’t ever been touched in his entire life.

The Doctor opens his eyes and, with a tender smile, says, “I’m still here, you know. It’s me in there. Just a new face, a new personality. But I remember. I have my memories.”

“Memories?” I repeat quietly. “What about feelings? Are your feelings just a memory now? Do you...do you just _remember_ that you love me and you’ve got to learn how all over again?” Tears well up in my eyes, making my vision swim in a glassy haze.

The Doctor doesn’t answer for a few moments. Then, his expression changes to a sort of gentle sadness. “I could never forget how to love you, Gen. You’re my destiny. I was born to love you.” He leans forward and taps his temple with a grin. “It’s hard-wired into my brain.”

I manage to laugh through a choked sob. It’s hard to tell now if his words comfort me or just increase my guilt. The Doctor senses my dilemma.

“It’s different for you, I know,” he says.

“It’s just...if I continue loving you the same way I did before, it’d be sort of wrong. You’re new. I’d be immediately loving a new man just hours after my other Doctor died. I didn’t even get a chance to mourn him.”

“But you’re just remembering my old face,” the Doctor says. “I’ve changed, but I’m not so changed that I’m unrecognizable.”

He takes my good hand in both of his. His fingers find the Gallifreyan wedding ring he gave me. He touches the crystal gently before observing the gold band on his left hand.

“Do you remember when I gave you this?” the Doctor asks.

I do. We were on our way to Italy, to the isolated Cascata Del Mulino hot spring. The whole way the Doctor enthusiastically told of the legend of Terme di Saturnia, a group of hot springs in Tuscany. According to the Romans, they were formed by lightning bolts thrown by Jupiter, the god of sky and thunder, during a violent quarrel between he and Saturn, the god of prosperity and peace. The bolts missed Saturn, creating the leveled craters that filled with water from the rock crevices below. Apparently the mineral-rich water has therapeutic properties and beneficial effects on the skin.

We never made it that far. Instead, we landed on Isopterus, a planet inhabited by a form of humanoid race and giant termites. At some point in history, a genetic explosion caused the termites to grow extremely large and they overran the planet, consuming all plant life and then starting on the humanoid population. The termites captured us and took us to their nest, where they debated on what way best to feed on us. I told the Doctor it felt a lot like how the three Stone trolls had tied up Bilbo and the dwarves in _The Hobbit_ and were deliberating on different ways they could cook them. At first, the Doctor scolded me, saying this was no time for stories, but then he realized that Bilbo had escaped in much the same fashion that the Doctor uses to get out of tight spots quite often – telling stories.

The Doctor talked and talked to the giant termites, stalling them while he thought of an escape plan. There was no need, though, because a humanoid army attacked the termite nest and we were caught in the crossfire. We clawed and fought our way to freedom and flat out ran four miles back to the TARDIS. Once safely behind locked doors, we clung to each other for support as we gasped for breath. It was there, in that moment when we were sweaty and bloody, with torn and dirty clothes and coming off the high from the terror we just barely fled from, that the Doctor got down on one knee. He opened a tiny white box with Gallifreyan carvings on it to reveal the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.

“I want to do this forever,” the Doctor said breathlessly. “This, running and fighting and discovering, with you. Only you.”

That moment was the moment I felt I was born to experience. Sometimes people describe times in their lives when they reach fulfillment. I never thought that was possible until the moment the Doctor asked me to marry him. I didn’t even hesitate – I said yes.

He went on to say that on Gallifrey, populating the planet and creating Time Lords was the top priority. If a man or Time Lord hadn’t married by 95 years old – the equivalent of a 30 year old on Earth – they were given a Gallifreyan ring and assigned a wife in order to reproduce. The true intention of the ring was to be given to one’s soul mate, a decision some men made for themselves and some that were appointed. The Doctor and the wife he was given had mutual respect for each other and a pleasant life for a while, but she was never his soul mate. They did have a child, though, so they technically fulfilled their cultural duties.

The Doctor had just began his education as a Time Lord, so love and a family were the last things on his mind. He kept the ring, though, in case he did happen to find someone worthy of it.

I regard my new Doctor once more and nod.

“I told you it took me eight hundred years to find my soul mate,” the Doctor says. “No one else had even come close in all that time.”

At this point, there’s no controlling the flow of tears gushing from my eyes. Since my good hand is occupied by the Doctor’s, I can’t reach up to wipe them away. They fall, wetting my lap, and I can’t figure out if I’m crying so hard because of the moment or because I simply don’t know how to stop. I can’t wipe my nose, either, so I gracelessly sniff in a load of runny boogers.

“You’re still my wife, but if you want to take off the ring for a while I’d understand.”

“I don’t want to take it off,” I say in a small voice, like a child. I finally look up and face the Doctor. His eyes are shiny with unfallen tears.

“I know it won’t be easy, but just remember, I’ll always love you. That won’t change.” The Doctor puts his hands on the side of my face and wipes away the wetness with his entire palm. As if his touch were magic, I miraculously stop crying. Then I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

“Thank you,” I say so quietly it’s almost inaudible. Now that I’m calm, a wave of fatigue washes over my body. “I think I need to get some sleep.” I’ve been through a hell of an ordeal since the Doctor and I visited the planet of the Ood and set a course for the most tragic days of my life. Not to mention that the last time I slept was the night before the Ood planet. Being suspended in the Time Vortex sort of paused all my bodily functions, yeah, but that doesn’t really count as resting.

“Come on, I’ll show you to our new ro–” He stops mid-sentence with his mouth formed in an O and his eyes widened as if he said something taboo.

“It’s still our room,” I tell him.

“All right,” he says with a satisfied smile. He gets to his feet and offers me a hand, which I take. He regards me for a quick second before kissing my forehead like he always used to. I close my eyes and revel in the small action that seems to awaken dormant butterflies in my stomach, and I feel a sliver of hope grow off the wings of those butterflies.

The Doctor and I make our way out of the sick bay. Our last room was towards the front, near the console room. I wonder where it will be now, and what it will look like. We end up back in the console room, to my confusion, until the Doctor leads me down the staircase and up one to the right. Just inside the archway are wood double doors. That’s new. The Doctor places his hands on each handle, wiggles his eyebrows at me, then pushes the doors open with a flourish.

I fall in love with the room as soon as I lay eyes on it. Our last room was simple and elegant. This one is designed more like a cabin. The ceiling vaults high into a point and strings of lights line the back wall to frame the huge bed in a golden glow. The portal window I loved so much is still there, along with a real fireplace where an actual fire crackles happily. The rugs on the hardwood floors are thick and fluffy, almost like they aspire to be an animal pelt. The armchairs before the fire are huge and plush. The furniture is made from some light wood, maybe white oak, and whoever made it managed to capture the essence of the forest in the carvings. The only source of light, besides the string lights and the fire, are a few small, dim table lamps. I sort of like the darkness. It’s cozy.

“It’s wonderful,” I say.

“Yes, I like it too,” the Doctor says. “Well, off you pop. You probably want a shower and all of that, so I’ll leave you to it.”

“Are you going to come back?” Our conversation didn’t really lead us in the direction of figuring out if we’re going to immediately go back to sharing a bed.

“Ah, not right away. I want to run some more scans on the TARDIS, revise protocols an things.” He makes the tasks sound important but I kind of feel like they double as excuses to give me privacy without actually pointing it out. He taps my nose and says, “Go on, get some rest so we can continue our adventures through the universe.”

I truly smile for the first time since I met him. “Good night, Doctor.”

“Good night, Mrs. Doctor,” he says teasingly. He leans down to kiss me on the cheek and then backs out of the room, closing the doors behind him.

Tenderly I touch the spot on my face where his lips touched and I abruptly realize that I’ve been a complete idiot. I’ve known since the day I went to Venus with the Doctor that he could regenerate, and that eventually he would. I’m sure I had a right to be upset about the change at first, but I took it a bit too far. We had eight good years together. I claim to know everything about my other Doctor except the fact that he chose me to spend the rest of his ridiculously long life with. No matter what he looks like, he’ll always be my Doctor.

I pull the doors open. They bang loudly against the wall, drawing the attention of the Doctor as he reaches the archway to the console room. He looks at me curiously as I run to him. I don’t stop, I just use the momentum to wrap my good arm around his neck and pull him to me, sacrificing my fractured wrist. I push through the pain and begin the kiss with a passionate force that he immediately responds to. His hands find my waist and rub up my back as I grip his hair between my fingers.

At one of our very few breaks for breath I manage to say, “I’m sorry,” against his lips. He responds by kissing me again, pushing me back against the wall. I don’t want to let go. I never want to let go.

Slowly, it ends.

“Well, that’s one way to welcome my new form into the world.”

“I should have done it sooner. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” The Doctor pushes some of my hair out of my face. “Go on, now. You look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet.”

“I’ll see you later, then.”

He kisses me on the forehead and then turns to the console room. I watch him disappear before going back to the bedroom.

The portal wall in my room shows the starry night sky from the ground of a planet. Assuming she mirrors the outside environment, it’s night time. When I wake up, dusk is setting, casting a fine orange glow across the room. I groan and stretch. The only thing that pulls me out of bed is my grumbling stomach. I dress myself in a robe over my pajamas, don fluffy slippers, then go on a hunt for the kitchen.

The TARDIS has no map and no rhyme or reason to its inner layout, so I have no idea where to start. I could end up lost deep in the TARDIS, starving to death. I take it slow, rounding one corner after another.

It finally dawns on me that I can ask the TARDIS for help. Nothing happens for a few minutes after I ask, but then the end of a dim hallway to my right glows bright. I thank the TARDIS and take the hallway at a jog.

The kitchen is a simple design, very homey. I browse through the cupboards and refrigerator, trying to decide what to eat. I settle on bacon and eggs. While the bacon sizzles in the pan, I make two slices of toast and slather one with strawberry jam and the other with butter. Once I finish those, it’s time to turn the bacon over. I start the eggs, then poke around the cupboard for something else to eat. I find an open box of Jammie Dodgers, some weird shortbread cookie with jam in the middle. I’ve never seen these in my life so I wonder where they came from. I take a bite of one. Eh, they’re all right. I sit down on a stool and munch on the cookies until the eggs and bacon are done.

“Coffee!” I suddenly say aloud. “Yeah, I could use some coffee.” I fix up a pot, then dig into my breakfast while it brews.

After I’ve eaten, the coffee is just about ready. I set all my used cooking supplies in a sink of hot water, then pour myself a cup.

“Ah, I thought I smelled coffee,” the Doctor says from the doorway.

I gesture to the pot. “Help yourself.”

As the Doctor passes me, he plants a kiss on my head and says, “Good morning, wife. Or should I say, good evening.”

“I noticed the sun was setting outside,” I say. “What planet are we on?”

“Phraxa.”

“Can we go out and explore? It looks beautiful.”

“Ah, no,” the Doctor says with a frown. He taps his lip. “The air is toxic. It’s completely uninhabited by living creatures.”

I take a sip of my coffee and stare at him over the brim of the mug. “Nice of you to bring us here, then.”

“Yes, well, I just needed somewhere peaceful so I could run diagnostics on the TARDIS, and give you time to–” The Doctor stops and cries out in such a way that I think he’s having a heart attack. Instead he grabs the empty package of cookies and waves it in my face.

“You ate my Jammie Dodgers!” he cries.

“Sorry. I was hungry.”

The Doctor cradles the empty package. “Oh, you poor, beautiful little souls. Gone so soon.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Did you at least enjoy them?”

“They were all right.”

“ _All_ _right?!_ ”the Doctor repeats dubiously. “I take back what I said yesterday. Give me your ring.” He holds out his palm expectantly.

I chuckle. “I always wondered what would be our demise.”

“Jammie Dodgers, apparently.”

“Let’s go back to Earth then, stock up.”

“We’ll have to.” The Doctor tosses the package in the trash bin, then takes a seat across from me with a cup of coffee. “Any ideas on where you’d like to go after Earth?”

I shrug. “Thought you were divorcing me.”

“It’s debatable.”

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
